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The Explicator
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Gide's La Porte Étroite

a
Lui Levy
a
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Published online: 09 Jul 2010.

To cite this article: Lui Levy (1979) Gide's La Porte Étroite, The Explicator, 37:4,
22-24, DOI: 10.1080/00144940.1979.9938596

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00144940.1979.9938596

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 by explaining in his Politics that rebels generally turned into tyrants and, more impor-
tantly for our purposes, that tyrants generally started out as rebels (J.D., Aristotles
Politiques, 1598, p. 310):
The Tyran was created by the multitude, against the Nobleman, to the end,
that they should not oppresse them, as is manifest by the euents and issues
of things. For almost all Tyrans haue become so, through being Captaines
and leaders of the people, hauing gotten credite by forging accusations
against the nobilitie.
The Elizabethan and Jacobean stage constantly exploited the dramatic possibilities
suggested by the political commonplace. In 2 Henry VZ Shakespeare’s rebel, Jack Cade,
exhibits all the ambition, cruelty, and avarice of the tyraut. He wants to reign as lord
and king (IV.ii. 65-72), to murder all nobles and peers of the realm (IV.ii. 177, IV.vii.
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114-1 15), and to establish a new regime based on the satisfaction of sensual appetites
(IV.ii. 60-65, IV.vi. 1-6). Fletcher’s rebel, Maximus, seeks in Valentinian to replace the
Emperor whose death he has contrived, to become a “Caesar” over Rome (V.iii. 26),
to defy “bad fortunes” (V.iii. 39), and to marry the royal widow, Eudoxia. Interest-
ingly, Jonson’s portrayal of the infamous rebel Catiline begins with the ghostly ap-
pearance of Sylla, the equally infamous tyrant, who inspires the rebel’s career by in-
fecting his spirit with ambition and fury (Catiline,I.i. 1-72). The connection between
the rebel and the tyrant is most explicit in Marlowe’s own Edward ZI wherein the King
refers to the ascending Mortimer as a rebel (IIi. 265, 1II.i. 154, 174, 181, 187,200)
and to the victorious Mortimer as a tyrant (IV.vii. 92). In this light we can see that
Ceneus’ description of Tamburlaine furnishes him with one of the most common and
easily recognizable accoutrements of the tyrant. Apparently, Marlowe has departed
from his sources here in order to identify the character on stage as an example of a
familiar phenomenon-the rebel turned tyrant-and, thus, to make him more believ-
able and comprehensible to his audience.

-ROBERT S. MIOLA, Lafayatte College

LA PORTE ~ T R O I T E

Dans un jardin pas trss grand, pas tr& beau, que rien de bien particular
ne distingue de quantitd d’autres jardins normands, la maison des Bucolin,
blanche, ii deux Btages, ressemble i beaucoup de maisons de campagne du
siicle avant-dernier. Elle ouvre une vingtajne de grandes fenktres sur le-de-
vant du jardin, au levant; autant par derriere; elle n’en n’a pas sur les cotes.
~ e fengtres
s sont ti petits carreaux: quelques-uns, ricemment remplacbs,
paraissent trop clairs parmi les vieux qui, auprks, paraissent verts et ternis.
Certains ont des d6fauts que nos parents appellent des “bouillons”; l’arbre
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 qu’on regarde au travers se dkgingande;le facteur, en passant devant, prend
une bosse brusquement (pp. 495-6).
- A N D R ~ GIDE

Gide’s PORTE BTROITE

Gide’s narrative technique in the Porte itroite can be described as dramatic. It is
based essentially on the use of dialogue rather than “outside” narration by a third-
person narrator (the “narrateur omniscient”). However, Gide makes use of other
techniques; among them description, which appears in various forms: the “static”
description, the result of which is a kind of painting, a “tableau”; and the “dynamic”,
description which describes a movement in the landscape (see: the sunset at Fon-
guesemare during Je’rbme and Alissa’s last encounter; cf. Pliiade, p. 576), and whose
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narrative function differs notably from that of the static description.

The description of the Bucolin’s summer house at Fongueusemare, in the Normandy
countryside, is the most developed of the three static descriptions to be found in the
book. It is definitely the kind of description known from Balzac’s days; however, Gide
uses this technique with extreme care, selecting only the few striking details which
carry the symbolic meaning of the picture; there is no plain description for its own sake.
The first sentence establishes the general setting in the mediocre bourgeois world of
French provincial life:
Dans un jardin pas tres grand, pas tres beau, que rien de bien particulier ne
distingue . . . la maison des Bucolin . . . ressemble beaucoup de maisons
de campagne du siicle avantdernier.
Later on it becomes apparent that this plain, unconspicuous look is deceiving; that it
does not reflect the reality of the events taking place inside the house. In fact, we dis-
cover a whole series of gross breaches of the Protestant bourgeoisie’s rigid, if not petty,
moral rules: “normal” family life is totally absent, and, in the end, there is a brutal
break of conjugal fidelity bonds. The “honorable” appearance hides a whirlpool one
could call “les passions Buco1in”-the whole complex of relationships between the
characters, which composes the “histoire” of JCrbme and in which he exhausts all his
moral resources (p. 495).
A similar symbolic meaning is conveyed by the function of the windows of the
house which are now described, underlining even more the deceiving look of the house.
Indeed, the onlooker, when seeing the “vingtaine de grandes fenctres” (ibid.) on both
sides of the house, would expect its dwellers to have a broad view of the outside world;
and, conversely, that the windows would create a total transparency to onlookers from
the outside world. The windows would, in fact, be a symbol of free and total human
communication.
Yet, as one comes closer, it becomes evident that these windows are no longer real
windows, if indeed, they ever were. Not only are their panes small, but they are also
green and tarnished; so that instead of letting the eye look freely through them, they
obscure all vision. To look inside the house, one must bring the eye close to one of the
small new panes of glass which are still transparent; however, looking into the house is
like looking through a keyhole, and the viewing becomes indiscreet, suggesting indeed

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 that something unwholesome is happening inside. Conversely, the other view, that of
the inhabitants looking out, is distorted by the “bouillons” in the glass. These create a
distorted perception of the outside world, as symbolized by the image of the tree and
of the hunchbacked postman:
L’arbre qu’on regarde au travers se digingande; le facteur, en passant devant,
prend une bosse brusquement.
Thus, the real relationship of the dwellers of Fongueusemare to the outside world,
i.e., reality, involves a total break of communication. On the one hand, under the ap-
parently quiet appearance of the bourgeois summerhouse boils a world of passions;
while, on the other hand, the characters can only have a twisted image of life.
One of the manuscript versions of the first chapter shows that, at an early stage,
more focus was put on Lucile Bucolin, who is the ultimate incarnation of the twisted
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mind. Such a plot would probably have centered on.the characters’ relationship with
the surrounding world. But Gide chose to concentrate on Jhrome’s “histoire,” looking
inward, not outward.
However, he chose to retain the description of the house at Fongueusemare. Even
if one could apply t o a certain extent the image of the “closed bubble” to the charac-
ters’ relationship in the following chapters, the relationship with the outside world sug-
gested by the description does not appear again. A narrative gap is thus created between
this part of the first chapter and the following ones. Taking into account that the Porte
ttroite is one of Gide’s first novels and that it was hard for him to bring it to the final
stage of its composition, that kind of narrative gap is not too surprising.
-LUI LEVY, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

MAUDLIN
Mud-mattressed under the sign of the hag
In a clench of blood, the sleep-talking virgin
Gibbets with ther curse the moon’s man,
Faggot-bearing Jack in his crackless egg:

Hatched with a claret hogshead to swig

He kings it, navel-knit to no groan,
But at the price of a pinstitched skin
Fish-tailed girls purchase each white leg.
-SYLVIA PLATH

Plath’s MAUDLIN
Sylvia Plath’s “Maudlin” (in The Colossus [London : Faber and Faber , 19601 ,p. 48)
is a highly contrived and effectively realized utterance on a very personal event: the los-
ing of one’s virginity. In Plath’s own experience, as so vividly recounted in The Bell Jar
24