This study will provide a critical psychoanalysis of Colette's novel The Pure and the Impure, focusing on the characters' pursuit of jouissance, or pleasure, specifically sexual pleasure as essential element of love. However, if love is viewed as one's profound emotional connection to the beloved in at least a partial forsaking of one's egocentricity, then this pursuit of jouissance is more an expression of narcissism, or obsessive self-love, than of true love of another. In any case, none of the characters in the novel can be said to be happy because of their pursuit of pleasure or even because of their achieving it. Colette is a liberated woman, but she also a keen observer of the passing scene, not a naive idealist, and she hardly believes that the pursuit or achievement of jouissance will bring happiness. In fact, the more a character is obsessed with jouissance (such as X, the Don Juan), the less likely he will ever find peace, self-acceptance, or happiness. As for Lesbian relationships, Colette is there also most realistic: "We lacked nothing, these women and I: we had every kind of trouble" (Colette 168). Every character seeking pleasure can be said to either fail miserably, or to find, upon achieving that pleasure, that it has not brought the satisfaction sought. These are the "impure" relationships of the title. On the other hand, the Lesbian couple described by the narrator "Colette" in Chapter 7 is said to be chaste and, if "Colette" can be taken at face value, this couple is held up for much admiration, although "Colette" doubts they will be so admired: "How hard it is for respectable people to believe in innocence!" (Colette 125).
The study will apply the ideas of Sigmund Freud, Michel Foucault, Luce Irigaray, and Jacques Lacan to these characters, their interpersonal relationships, and the meaning of love as it is revealed in the book. Lesbianism, heterosexuality, the psyches of men and women, the pursuit of pleasure...