L'Année Dernière à Marienbad is a narrative film which plays with Appearance and Reality in a baroque fashion. This thesis is an attempt to come to terms with the Marienbad world view. In the introduction are discussed the arguments against the film as expressed by Pauline Kael, as well as the commentary style of my critical approach. In the first chapter we are faced with film as high art, as the camera takes us on an architectural tour of a baroque chateau while a nameless narrator describes the set. Eventually the voice is revealed to be that of an actor in a play. In the audience discussing this play we meet our three protagonists: A, a mysterious woman; M, a man who may be her husband; and X, a man who tries to persuade her to leave with him. We are teased by meaning and symbolism at every turn as we await the plot of our story to unfold. Chapter two takes us to the gardens where we are presented a statue of a man, woman and dog. X evokes scenes from A's and his "shared" past. The style of Marienbad's editing replaces traditional Hollywood Découpage with a version its creators believe to be closer to reality as it should be presented on film. A possible reason for the number of detractors of Marienbad is discovered to be the inherent passive aggression present in the film. The final chapter outlines X's search for an ending and discusses our reactions to these various solutions. The conclusion compares the ending from Resnais's Hiroshima Mon Amour to the end of Marienbad presenting the timeless reality of fictitious film. The search for a conclusion or answer to the riddle of Marienbad however remains elusive. We are invited to encounter possibilities as often as we, an audience, encounter L'Année Dernière à Marienbad. / Arts, Faculty of / French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies, Department of / Graduate

Le Nouveau Roman est passé à la postérité comme l’un des exemples majeurs d’un moment intransitif de la littérature française. En déstabilisant le traitement de la narration et de l’intrigue, du cadre spatio-temporel, des personnages et des voix, le Nouveau Roman conteste la mimèsis référentielle réaliste pour se tourner vers les aspects formels de la création romanesque. Néanmoins, cela n’est pas un geste gratuit : la déconstruction formaliste, les nouveaux romanciers la revendiquent au nom d’un « nouveau réalisme ». Le Nouveau Roman se veut l’avènement d’une « ère du soupçon » sur les conventions esthétiques et les représentations diffusées par celles-ci. De plus, ce parti pris ne peut se comprendre en dehors d’un contexte historique marqué à la fois par les traumatismes de la Seconde Guerre mondiale et les impératifs de modernisation économique qui de 1946 à 1975 transforment profondément la société française. Loin d’anéantir la référentialité, le Nouveau Roman témoigne d’un conflit avec elle, si bien que sa déconstruction du roman est une reconstruction produisant de nouvelles — parfois pas si nouvelles que cela ? — formes, représentations, manières d’affirmer l’existence de l’homme et de la société. Aussi le Nouveau Roman contribue-t-il à l’imaginaire social de son époque. En proposant une lecture des romans de Michel Butor et d’Alain Robbe-Grillet, cette thèse se penchera sur la tentative néo-romanesque de réinventer et la littérature et le monde. Trois axes d’analyse guident ce travail : le premier porte sur la représentation de l’univers fictionnel parallèlement à une discussion sur le problème de la mimèsis ; le second, sur la poétique des personnages et son rapport à la question de l’identité personnelle ; le troisième, sur le statut de la socialité dans les œuvres, à travers les questions de l’identité collective, de la mémoire et des usages sociaux de la langue. / The nouveau roman passed to posterity as one of the main examples of an intransitive moment of french literature. By destabilizing the narration and the plot, the spatio-temporal framework, the characters and the voices, the Nouveau Roman disputes the realistic referential mimesis and turns itself to formal aspects of novelistic creation. However, this is not a vain gesture: the so-called nouveaux romanciers claim a formalist deconstruction in the name of a “new realism”. The nouveau roman proposes the advent of an “age of suspicion” about the esthetical conventions and the representations disseminated by them. In addition to this, with the purpose of understanding this position, one must take into account its historical context, marked by the traumas of World War II as well as the requirements of the economic modernization, which deeply modifies French society from 1946 to 1975. Far from having annihilated the referentiality, the nouveau roman is in conflict with it, so that its deconstruction of the novel is a reconstruction, creating new–sometimes not so new?–forms, representations, ways to affirm the existence of man and society. Thus, the nouveau roman contributes to the social imaginary of its time. Through a reading of the Michel Butor’s and Alain Robbe-Grillet’s novels, this thesis will focus on this attempt by the nouveau roman to reinvent the literature and the world. Three axes will guide this work: the first concerns the representation of the fictional universe along with a discussion on the mimesis problem; the second, the poetics of characters and its relation to the question of personal identity; the third, the status of sociality in the novels, addressing the questions of the collective identity, the memory and the social uses of language. / O novo romance passou à posteridade como um dos exemplos emblemáticos de um momento intransitivo da literatura francesa. Ao desestabilizar o tratamento da narração e da intriga, do recorte espaço-temporal, das personagens e das vozes, o novo romance contesta a mímesis referencial realista e se volta aos aspectos formais da criação romanesca. Entretanto, não se trata de um gesto gratuito: os novos romancistas reivindicam a desconstrução formalista em nome de um “novo realismo”. O novo romance propõe o advento de uma “era da suspeita” diante das convenções estéticas bem como das representações por elas difundidas. Ademais, tal atitude não pode ser compreendida fora de um contexto histórico marcado ao mesmo tempo pelos traumas da Segunda Guerra Mundial e pelos imperativos de modernização econômica que de 1946 a 1975 transformam profundamente a sociedade francesa. Longe de aniquilar a referencialidade, o novo romance está em conflito com ela, de tal modo que sua desconstrução do romance é uma reconstrução, com a produção de novas — às vezes não tão novas assim? — formas, representações, maneiras de afirmar a existência do homem e da sociedade. Assim, o novo romance contribui com o imaginário social de sua época. Através de uma leitura dos romances de Michel Butor e de Alain Robbe- Grillet, esta tese pretende debruçar-se sobre a tentativa neo-romanesca de reinventar a literatura e o mundo. Três eixos de análise guiam este trabalho: o primeiro trata da representação do universo ficcional paralelamente a uma discussão acerca do problema da mímesis; o segundo, da poética das personagens e de sua relação com a questão da identidade pessoal; o terceiro, do estatuto da socialidade nas obras, abordando as questões da identidade coletiva, da memória e dos usos sociais da língua.

O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar como se deu a recepção ao \"novo romance\" no Brasil, notadamente no \"Suplemento Literário\", caderno cultural que integrava o jornal O Estado de São Paulo, e foi publicado entre os anos de 1956 e 1974. Inicialmente, foi feita uma apresentação geral do \"novo romance\", destacando-se suas principais obras e o contexto histórico-social do qual fazia parte. O \"novo romance\", movimento surgido em meados dos anos 1950 na França, causou um abalo nas estruturas da arte do romance, levando certos autores a questionar e a rejeitar as técnicas tradicionais - notadamente as de inspiração balzaquiana - da concepção romanesca, que consideravam desgastadas e ultrapassadas. Entre os autores que fizeram parte do movimento e que são abordados neste trabalho, pode-se ressaltar Alain Robbe-Grillet, Michel Butor, Nathalie Sarraute e Claude Simon. Apesar de haver outros escritores integrantes do \"novo romance\", esses foram os que tiveram maior divulgação no \"Suplemento Literário\". Um dos capítulos é dedicado a Claude Simon, cujo enfoque está no prêmio Nobel de Literatura que o escritor ganhou em 1985. Neste capítulo, são estudados diversos artigos de jornais e revistas que comentaram o assunto à época, e que reagiram de forma variada a essa conquista. Alguns artigos foram analisados isoladamente mas, sempre que possível e havendo pontos de contato entre eles, procurei fazer um cotejo, visando estabelecer semelhanças e diferenças, salientando opiniões contrárias e favoráveis. Para proceder à análise dos artigos e entender a reação da crítica diante das obras dos novos romancistas, tomei como base a teoria da recepção de Hans Robert Jauss, que estabelece a instância do leitor na realização da obra, a partir do conceito de \"horizonte de expectativas\". / The aim of this thesis is the analysis of the reception to the \"nouveau roman\" through the articles presented by \"Suplemento Literário\", a book of reviews published by O Estado de São Paulo, from 1956 to 1974. Firstly, we presented the general characteristics of the \"nouveau roman\" by introducing its main writers and its social and historic background. The \"nouveau roman\" was a literary movement started in the late 50\'s of the twentieth century that changed the way to produce and read novels, by rejecting the traditional techniques, mainly those related to Balzac\'s style of writing, considered as obsolete. Amongst all of the writers belonging to the \"noveau roman\" movement, we pointed out Allain-Robbe Grillet, Michel Butor, Nathalie Sarraute and Claude Simon. Even considering the fact that there were other important writers, those were the ones most referred by the authors who wrote articles to the \"Suplemento Literário\". One of the chapters of the thesis is dedicated to Claude Simon, Nobel Prize in Literature in 1985. In this chapter, we collected articles published in 1985 from newspapers and magazines in order to analyse the repercussion of the award granted to him. Some of the articles were studied separately, but, when we could find common ideas in their contents, we examined the articles in a way to emphasize differences and similarities, and different points of view. The reception theory, created by Hans Robert Jauss, was our point of reference to settle the approach of the articles as well as to understand all the reaction of the experts who criticize the novels produced by the writers of \"nouveau roman\".

Bien que fort différents, les romans des années 1950 d’Alain Robbe-Grillet et les romans des années 1960 de Robert Pinget ont prétendu contester les formes littéraires que le XXe siècle a héritées du siècle précédent, et notamment la description dite « balzacienne ». Nous interrogeons ici les modalités linguistiques de cette contestation et l’ambiguïté littéraire de ce déni d’héritage. La relation entre la description telle que l’ont pratiquée d’une part ces deux « Nouveaux Romanciers » et d’autre part les grands auteurs réalistes du XIXe siècle est ici envisagée selon une triple perspective : le maintien ou non d’une textualité prototypiquement méronymique ; la construction langagière d’une réalité dont l’existence est soudain moins sûre ; l’effacement énonciatif et ses conséquences esthétiques. Selon une approche résolument technique, les descriptions romanesques de Pinget et de Robbe-Grillet sont donc ici systématiquement mises en regard de descriptions canoniques de Balzac, mais aussi de Flaubert et de Zola. La contestation du protocole réaliste repose en effet sur une reprise et un refus : la complexité textuelle, la confusion dénotative et reférentielle, l’instabilité énonciative permettent aux deux romanciers de procurer des descriptions à la fois hyperréalistes et antiréalistes. Tout en prenant acte de la différence radicale des deux auteurs, il s’agit finalement de montrer comment l’un et l’autre sont parvenus à mettre au point un protocole descriptif résolument nouveau, qui rende compte du monde en tant qu’il est et en tant qu’il échappe. / Although very different, the novels of the 1950s by Alain Robbe-Grillet and of the 1960s by Robert Pinget claimed to challenge the literary forms that the twentieth century has inherited from the previous century, including the description of Honoré de Balzac. We question here the linguistic modalities of this confrontation, as well as the literary ambiguity of this denial of inheritance.The relationship between the description as have practiced these two "New Novelists" and on the other hand the great realistic writers of the nineteenth century is considered here in a triple perspective: maintenance / defence - or not – of a textuality, which is prototypically based on meronymy ; the linguistic construction of a reality whose existence is suddenly uncertain ; the enunciative erasure and its aesthetic consequences. In a decidedly technical approach, the descriptions of the novels of and Robbe-Grillet and Pinget are systematically opposed to the canonical descriptions of Balzac, but also to some extent to Flaubert and Zola. Challenging the realistic protocol is indeed based both on a recovery and a refusal: the textual complexity, the denotative and referential confusion and the enunciative instability allow these two novelists to provide descriptions which can be considered hyperrealistic as well as antirealistic. Eventually, while acknowledging the radical difference between the two authors, the aim is to show how both writers have managed to develop a considerably new descriptive protocol that reflects the world as it is and as it escapes.

O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar como se deu a recepção ao \"novo romance\" no Brasil, notadamente no \"Suplemento Literário\", caderno cultural que integrava o jornal O Estado de São Paulo, e foi publicado entre os anos de 1956 e 1974. Inicialmente, foi feita uma apresentação geral do \"novo romance\", destacando-se suas principais obras e o contexto histórico-social do qual fazia parte. O \"novo romance\", movimento surgido em meados dos anos 1950 na França, causou um abalo nas estruturas da arte do romance, levando certos autores a questionar e a rejeitar as técnicas tradicionais - notadamente as de inspiração balzaquiana - da concepção romanesca, que consideravam desgastadas e ultrapassadas. Entre os autores que fizeram parte do movimento e que são abordados neste trabalho, pode-se ressaltar Alain Robbe-Grillet, Michel Butor, Nathalie Sarraute e Claude Simon. Apesar de haver outros escritores integrantes do \"novo romance\", esses foram os que tiveram maior divulgação no \"Suplemento Literário\". Um dos capítulos é dedicado a Claude Simon, cujo enfoque está no prêmio Nobel de Literatura que o escritor ganhou em 1985. Neste capítulo, são estudados diversos artigos de jornais e revistas que comentaram o assunto à época, e que reagiram de forma variada a essa conquista. Alguns artigos foram analisados isoladamente mas, sempre que possível e havendo pontos de contato entre eles, procurei fazer um cotejo, visando estabelecer semelhanças e diferenças, salientando opiniões contrárias e favoráveis. Para proceder à análise dos artigos e entender a reação da crítica diante das obras dos novos romancistas, tomei como base a teoria da recepção de Hans Robert Jauss, que estabelece a instância do leitor na realização da obra, a partir do conceito de \"horizonte de expectativas\". / The aim of this thesis is the analysis of the reception to the \"nouveau roman\" through the articles presented by \"Suplemento Literário\", a book of reviews published by O Estado de São Paulo, from 1956 to 1974. Firstly, we presented the general characteristics of the \"nouveau roman\" by introducing its main writers and its social and historic background. The \"nouveau roman\" was a literary movement started in the late 50\'s of the twentieth century that changed the way to produce and read novels, by rejecting the traditional techniques, mainly those related to Balzac\'s style of writing, considered as obsolete. Amongst all of the writers belonging to the \"noveau roman\" movement, we pointed out Allain-Robbe Grillet, Michel Butor, Nathalie Sarraute and Claude Simon. Even considering the fact that there were other important writers, those were the ones most referred by the authors who wrote articles to the \"Suplemento Literário\". One of the chapters of the thesis is dedicated to Claude Simon, Nobel Prize in Literature in 1985. In this chapter, we collected articles published in 1985 from newspapers and magazines in order to analyse the repercussion of the award granted to him. Some of the articles were studied separately, but, when we could find common ideas in their contents, we examined the articles in a way to emphasize differences and similarities, and different points of view. The reception theory, created by Hans Robert Jauss, was our point of reference to settle the approach of the articles as well as to understand all the reaction of the experts who criticize the novels produced by the writers of \"nouveau roman\".

M.A. / This study started off as a search for the factors that turn the French New Novel into unreadable, unenjoyable, difficult literature. The most obvious keyword that sprang to mind was “doubt”. This was the effect that we as a reader felt when reading the novels mentioned above. There is doubt in two areas: Firstly we doubt our own ability to comprehend, being fully aware that the French New Novel is enjoyed primarily by academics. Secondly we doubt the novelists’ ability to produce what we would call a conventional novel like those developed by novelists such as Balzac, Flaubert, Stendhal and Zola in the 19th century. The search for “doubt” in the New Novel was very fruitful. Although some critics are of the opinion that the novels of Robbe-Grillet are to a certain extent understandable, they all agree that the novels of both Sarraute and Robbe-Grillet are in essence difficult to read and inadequately develop the four basic ingredients of the conventional novel, which are: character, plot, setting and time. These four elements should, in the case of a realistic novel, reflect the reader’s reality in order to create the illusion of being real. Our study has shown that Robbe-Grillet’s development of character and description of setting do not convince the reader that they could be real. They are in fact so inadequate and incoherent that the reader struggles to reconstruct a realistic character from the bits of information provided. Robbe-Grillet further breaks all conventional rules of time and space and leaves the reader disoriented. Sarraute appears to have abandoned convention totally as she has completely done away with character and setting in her novel Ici. It requires a great effort from the reader to reconstruct the fleeting abstract conversations that make up her novel. Both Sarraute and Robbe-Grillet have provided works of criticism on their own ideas of the novel in which they clearly state that they broke away deliberately from the form and content of the 19th century novel in a quest for a new authentic novel. This study was further able to point out certain mechanisms that the authors use to create instability in their novels. The many incoherent pieces that make up these novels allow the reader to play at reassembling them and often this leads to interesting new discoveries. One of these discoveries is the simultaneous presence of two or three levels of text. Where the surface text normally contains the story line, here the surface is broken, allowing the reader to penetrate into a second level of text. Here we find the metatext where the text comments on itself. We show that the metatext in both these novels often talks about doubt and about the incoherent nature of their own text. We may thus also say that “doubt” is an important leitmotiv in these novels. We might say that the only real characters in Robbe-Grillet’s and Sarraute’s novels are the reader and the author between whom there is an active interplay, although it is a delayed interplay. The novel becomes a game much like a board game – an interactive playing field that differs with every reading. This is especially true for Sarraute whose reactions to the reader’s initial reactions to the text have been pre-programmed into the novel. The real setting is then this abstract intellectual playing field. However, the reader never reaches the point where he can say that he has successfully unlocked the mysteries of these novels. Any interpretation remains partial and is surrounded by doubt.

Inutile de rappeler la prééminence du regard dans les oeuvres d’Alain Robbe-Grillet etparticulièrement dans Le Voyeur, La Jalousie et Instantanés qui forment le corpus du présenttravail. En apparence, l’auteur se contente de formuler très objectivement la subjectivitéhumaine. Et voilà que l’oeil de la concupiscence charnelle vient entamer cet ordre parfait,géométrique que l’on aurait cru inaltérable. L’objectif de ce travail est justement de montrerque l’oeil de l’arpenteur géomètre dissimule celui du pervers, à la recherche de la jouissance àtravers le regard.La première partie de ce travail, « Montage du regard », analyse les sujets regardantset les sujets/objets regardés dans leur diversité. La volonté de maintenir la distance entreregardeur et regardé et d’instaurer un regard distant est remise en question par tous lesprocédés textuels confirmant la présence d’une subjectivité qui regarde. Une subjectivité quiregarde, mais qui est aussi perverse. C’est ce que tente de montrer la deuxième partie,« Regard pervers et jouissance ». Il s’agit en fait non seulement d’étudier la présence effectivedu voyeur dans ces trois oeuvres, mais aussi de l’approcher dans sa diversité. La troisièmepartie, « Répétition et jouissance », vient confirmer la présence du voyeur pervers, toujours àla recherche de la jouissance par la ressaisie du spectacle convoité, d’où la présence de figuresobsédantes en leitmotiv.Notre approche sera une pure recherche formelle : analyser le regard, c’est mettre enévidence son fonctionnement textuel, par le moyen de la linguistique et de la stylistique. Ellecontribuera à élaborer une nouvelle lecture du regard chez Robbe-Grillet. / It is needless to mention the supremacy of one particular feature in Alain Robbe-Grillet’s works; namely, the look as it is particularly found in Le Voyeur, La Jalousie andInstantanés. These 3 works serve as the corpus for the research at stake. In appearance, andquite objectively, the author seems to be simply expressing human subjectivity. But therecome along eye of lust, altering every perfect geometrical order one could have noticed upuntil now. The goal of this work is to actually unveil the fact that the eye of the surveyor, thegeometer, is only an artifact dissimulating a perverted eye constantly in search of carnalpleasure through the look.The first part of this work, titled “Montage du Regard” ‘The optic setting’, is ananalysis of the observer and of the elements which are observed as diverse as they may be.The will to keep a distance between the observer and the element which a observed isconstantly questioned through the presence of textual elements that clearly reveal asubjectivity in the act of looking at a particular element. A subjectivity that observes, butwhich is also perverted. This is fully analyzed in the second part of the research, “Regardpervers et jouissance” ‘A perverse eye and a sensual pleasure’, which not only analyses theactual presence of the voyeur in the three works mentioned earlier, but also attempts toapproach him and tackle all his diverse aspects. The third part of this study “Répétition etjouissance” ‘Repetition and sensual pleasure’ reaffirms the presence of a perverted observer,always in search for carnal pleasure through the recapture of the coveted show. This furtherexplains the presence of obsessive scenes in a leitmotiv.Our approach in this study is based on a formal analysis of the look. Its goal is tohighlight its textual functioning thanks to linguistic and stylistic means, which will lead theway to a new reading and reconsideration of the look in Robbe-Grillet’s works.

Diss.--Leipzig, 2002. / Bibliogr. p. 204-221. Notes bibliogr.

Les Romanesques (1984-1994) de Robbe-Grillet forment une autobiographie qui se caractérise par le fait qu'elle conteste la possibilité même de son entreprise. Selon son auteur, l'opacité de l'inconscient, la trop grande volatilité des souvenirs et la part d'invention que comprend nécessairement toute écriture personnelle anéantissent à toute fin pratique la possibilité de l'autobiographe de restituer fidèlement (c'est-à-dire objectivement) son vécu. Conscient de l'influence de l'imaginaire et de l'inconscient sur la perception et la mémoire, Robbe-Grillet rejette le contrat de sincérité et d'authenticité que commande le « pacte autobiographique » pour signer un « pacte fantasmatique » avec le lecteur. Ce que nous proposons essentiellement de faire dans ce travail, c'est d'analyser comment l'auteur des Romanesques s'attaque aux structures canoniques de la langue et de l'autobiographie classique pour donner forme et figure à ses fantasmes. Dans le premier chapitre, nous cherchons à cerner le projet autobiographique robbe-grilletien; nous nous intéressons en premier lieu à la façon dont Robbe-Grillet définit lui-même son entreprise. Il apparaît clairement que la nouvelle autobiographie s'appuie sur les théories freudiennes et postfreudiennes du sujet (celles de Benveniste et de Lacan notamment) en plus d'être très marquée par l'entreprise autobiographique de Roland Barthes. Dans le deuxième chapitre, nous tentons de mettre en évidence la façon dont Robbe-Grillet exploite ses fantasmes, s'en sert comme générateurs de récit. S'il attache une grande importance à l'exploration de son univers fantasmatique, Robbe-Grillet n'hésite pas par ailleurs à utiliser toutes sortes de subterfuges, de stratégies narratives et discursives afin de brouiller le sens de son texte. S'apparentant à un véritable travail d'autocensure, ces processus d'écriture permettent à l'écrivain de se dégager de sa responsabilité énonciative et, par le fait même, du caractère angoissant de ses fantasmes. Afin de dégager et de décrire la nature et la logique du fantasme et du rêve, le caractère onirique de l'écriture robbe-grilletienne, le recours aux textes de Freud portant sur ces questions s'avère incontournable. Enfin, la dernière partie du mémoire s'intéresse au caractère pervers de la fantasmatique robbe-grilletienne. C'est dans l'obsession de Robbe-Grillet pour la représentation du sexe féminin et sa conception sadique de la création que s'expriment le plus fortement les désirs pervers de l'auteur. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Robbe-Grillet, Romanesques, Autobiographie, Psychanalyse, Perversion

This study of Alain Robbe-Grillet’s first four published novels seeks to examine the manifestations of four different philosophical concepts in these works. Each novel will be taken as a primary example of Robbe-Grillet’s interrogation of either time, space, difference or repetition. The title of this work, ‘Philosophical Conceptions of Time, Space, Difference and Repetition in the Early Novels of Alain Robbe-Grillet’, as apparently uncomplicated as it is, is useful not only for directly implicating the topics to be examined, but also for what it does not directly allude to. By making reference neither to Robbe-Grillet’s involvement in the movement of the Nouveau Roman nor the theoretical ideas he developed, the title demonstrates one of the main approaches employed here; for Robbe-Grillet’s novels will be examined first and foremost for the textual qualities they exhibit, and will not be tested against the author’s statements, as is most often the case in studies of Robbe-Grillet. When examining these novels, we will thus neither support our study with quotations from Robbe-Grillet’s many interviews and public statements, nor concern ourselves with the apparent objectivity or subjectivity of the novels’ narrators, nor will we base our examinations of the philosophical concepts found in the novels on questions of subjectivity or objectivity. It will become clear throughout our work that Robbe-Grillet’s novels, particularly the early novels that are the focus of this work, have been very well researched and from many different perspectives, yet in spite of the proliferation of texts dealing with these novels certain standard readings have evolved that impinge on the advancement of our understanding of Robbe-Grillet’s complex works. We will argue that this is precisely because these readings actually negate the multiple interpretations that the novels demand and that these standardised readings therefore work as fixed central points around which almost all analyses of the novels revolve. It is thus the aim of this work to complicate these dominant readings by engaging with the ways in which the novels both offer and deny different interpretations, a strategy that ultimately results in the impossibility of a sole fixed reading. In choosing this approach to study the novels, we wish to concentrate solely on the non-representative aspects of these novels. That is to say, the novels will not be treated here, as they are by many critics, for the way they present themselves on the surface as merely concerned with an interrogation of narrative strategies, characterisation or with an application of Robbe-Grillet’s theoretical modus operandi. Rather we will argue that the texts simultaneously invite a deeper reflection on philosophical concepts. The possibility the novels offer to consider the four philosophical concepts that are the focus of this study will be remarked by the novels’ continual engagement with these ideas so as to suggest finally the opportunity of conceiving of these concepts in a literary discourse. Thus, the philosophical concepts which will be deployed in examining Robbe-Grillet’s novels aim to elucidate not strict equivalences between a given concept and its expression in the novel, but rather the ways in which the novels themselves can be seen to propose their own conceptions of these philosophical notions. Thus, each of these chapters will ostensibly deal with a particular philosophical notion, yet they can be seen to work towards a similar shared goal; for each section of this study will propose that it is impossible to isolate a single unifying thesis or central controlling identity through which the texts can be examined. Instead, we will suggest that the novels are governed by a logic of difference in itself, a philosophical notion which, as we will see throughout this work, operates outside of the notion of identity and which favours fluid, unstable and continuously evolving relationships of its constituent parts.