Among the various studies written on the voluminous artistic production relating to the clownish figure in the XIXth century, more specifically on its melancholic form in the second half of the century, very few have carried interest to the novel. The objective of this master's thesis is to study the clown as a novel character, through Gavroche (Victor Hugo, Les Miserables ), Kenwell and Cox (Jules Claretie, Le Train 17) and the brothers Zemganno (Edmond de Goncourt, Les Freres Zemganno ). We will focus on the way those hyperbolic figures spread out their marginality, their laughter and their illusions within the novel, thus providing information on this one. Our analysis of the clown's passage through the novel, which always deploys in three phases (the marginal entrance, the ascension and the fall), demonstrates the incompatibility between the realistic material from the XIXth century and this nevertheless infinitely novelistic being.

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