This research examines psychoanalytic concepts that are relevant to Marguerite Duras's novel The Lover. The research will explore the character of the narrator from the standpoint of a psychological diagnosis, first setting forth the narrative context in which the character's psychological attributes emerge and then discussing the narrative function of the character as well as her behavior in relationships that are explored in the novel.
Set in colonial Indochina in the 1920s and 1930s, The Lover is structured as a memoir of a French girl's adolescence marked chiefly by family pathology and a sexual initiation that has various attributes of socially forbidden love. The focus of the relationships in the story is on the declining mental condition of the narrator's mother and the 15-year-old narrator's relationship with a Chinese businessman who is 12 years her senior. The narrative unfolds from the perspective of the narrator's status as an old woman; indeed, it begins with a reflection on her aged facial features. That alerts the reader that the narrative is to be a mature recollection, evaluation, and confessional. Very quickly, too, it becomes clear that the story is not told in a linear fashion but rather as a discontinuous series of major and minor memories, sometimes in present tense, sometimes in simple past tense, and sometimes in future perfect tense, expressed as a fait accompli but formulated as if the fact contemplated is yet to come.
The internal psychology of the narrator cannot be considered apart from her external sociology. Further, her psychology seems to be shaped in the context of prevailing cultural constructions of what women in general either are or should be. Thus the fact that the narrator's family are French colonials who are part of the ruling class of Indochina yet are also financially distressed, undoubtedly informs the shaping of the narrator's personality and behavior. The girl's embarrassment at her ...