This master's thesis deals with the reification, or transformation into objects, of the female characters in Michel Butor's La Modification. It is our contention that the two female characters, Henriette and Cecile, function not as characters, but as objects: they are unable to take up subject positions, and they have the same roles as the other inanimate objects in Butor's work. The critical analysis is based in part on existentialist, psychoanalytic, and poststructuralist theories of subjectivity, as well as feminist rereadings of these theories. We have also used several critical and theoretical works on the object in the "Nouveau Roman", in the novels of Michel Butor, and, specifically, in La Modification. / The first chapter deals with the work of several feminist theoreticians, who claim that woman is objectified in patriarchal society because she has no access to subjectivity, be it through the means of action, of vision, or of language. In the second chapter we discuss critical writings on the treatment and role of the object in Butor's work, writings which claim that these objects have a specific role to contribute to the characterisation of the main character, and to allow this main character to take up a position as subject. In the third chapter we examine the link between these two critical fields. The female characters in La Modification are objectified because they are not able to assume subject positions, they have no access to subjectivity through action, vision, or language. In addition, the female characters have the same narrative role as the other objects in the novel.

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