Le Moi de l’héroïne, l’Autre et les thèmes dominants dans “Mon Coeur à l’étroit” de Marie NDiaye

Abstract

The novel we are analyzing in this research is "Mon Coeur à l'étroit" by Marie Ndiaye. Our novel is structured mainly with a harmonious cohesion between dialogue (direct speech) and interior monologue. From the beginning of the novel, Ndiaye triggers a state of disturbance and shock in the rational logic and morals of the central character, Nadia, accompanied by her husband, Ange; which hinders an understanding of the world in which they live and where the plot begins. The novel progresses in an atmosphere of contextual and familial tremor and hatred going to the extreme. Having the most sensitive and strong morals, Nadia is the most affected by grim events. She suffers in silence and unfortunately feels a strong maladjustment to her world, a deep sense of unease, incomprehension and fear. We applied the quantitative analysis method of Muller (1968) and concluded that there is a close relationship between the dominant themes in our novel vs. the heroine's ego and the other characters. This link constitutes a clear proof of the focus on this ego; a focus that is not only textual, but also internal and psychological, supported by macrostructural and microstructural clues found throughout the novel. Thus, the quantitative analyzes and the development of microstructural and macrostructural marks have underlined the distance that the heroine's ego keeps vis-à-vis the other characters on one side and the focus on this centralized ego which manages all the situations on the other side.