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Memory in Colette's Chéri
Author(s) -
Stary Sonja G.
Publication year - 1984
Publication title -
orbis litterarum
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.109
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 1600-0730
pISSN - 0105-7510
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0730.1984.tb00502.x
Subject(s) - illusion , feeling , happiness , art , art history , philosophy , literature , psychology , social psychology , epistemology , neuroscience
Although Sidonie‐Gabrielle Colette based much of her fiction on her own personal memories, in her novel, Chéri , she portrays memory as a destructive force. The happiness which her characters, Léa Lonval and Chéri Peloux, discover in retrospect is all the more painful to them because their six‐year‐long liaison becomes overly embellished in their minds. In depicting the two protagonists of Chéri and its sequel, La Fin de Chéri , Colette transposes into them her own feelings. The writer, however, must be distinguished from the characters she creates in that, while Léa and Chéri are torn by the illusions which memory produces, Colette liberates herself from such a plight through writing. In Chéri , Colette denounces memory as a refuge from reality. Moreover, by means of her fiction, Colette rids herself of illusions she has had so as to see herself with more objectivity.