Stendhal exhibits in his novels an early interest in the psychology of literary characters. Placing subjective experience at the centre of literary narrative, he uses diverse and often very creative narrative strategies that allow him to represent the inner lives of his heroes. Drawing on discourse analysis, this thesis examines the modes of representation in The Charterhouse of Parma (1839) in order to explore how Stendhal orients the narrative towards the subjectivity of his characters. The first part, which is theoretical in nature, extends the traditional typology of the modes of representation to establish three categories of interest: the representation of thought, perception, and psychological states. The second, analytical part consists of the study of narrative processes in The Charterhouse of Parma. It traces the specificities in Stendhal’s usage of them and contextualises his methods in the evolution of the novel in the 19th century. The thesis contributes to the discussion about the centrality of subjectivity in Stendhal’s prose and readdresses the myth of Stendhal as a modernist writer ahead of his time.
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