robbe-grillet's uses of the past in dans le labyrinthe

8/12/2019 Robbe-Grillet's Uses of the Past in Dans Le Labyrinthe

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Robbe-Grillet's Uses of the past in "Dans le Labyrinthe"Author(s): E. T. RahvSource: The Modern Language Review, Vol. 66, No. 1 (Jan., 1971), pp. 76-84Published by: Modern Humanities Research AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3722469 .Accessed: 28/12/2013 11:24

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ROBBE-GRILLET'S USES OF THE PAST IN'DANS LE LABYRINTHE'

Dans le Labyrinthe, y Alain Robbe-Grillet, is a novel about the act of creating anovel in which perspective is doubled. The first-person narrator begins and endsthe book and frequently interrupts his narrative in a way usually assigned to theauthor of a novel. His tale concerns a soldier, whose third-person perspectivedominates the story within the story. Rather than allow his narrator to discuss thecreative process within his own fictional domain, such as Proust, Gide, or Joycehave done, Robbe-Grillet introduces a narrator who shows the creative process atwork in the construction of a fictional world different from his own, albeit one whichis a reflection of his own.

It is Robbe-Grillet's development of reflection as a literary technique which

determines the import of his novel. Although consciousness can proceed fromauthor to narrator to character with no reversal in this novel, forms - objects,itineraries, events and persons within their physical limitations - can reflectprecisely as in a mirror image, or approximately as in a shadow, from the narrativedomain to the narrator's domain, and from both fictional domains to life itself.Gerard Genette has rightly termed Robbe-Grillet's predilection for this techniqueof reflection the 'soul' of his work, and one which constantly postulates its doublenature dependent upon its sameness or its otherness every time a form, an image, oran event recurs.1

Robbe-Grillet's concern with method, with the functioning of the feverish or

creative consciousness here, overrides his concern with its end result. The feverishconsciousness in Dans le Labyrinthe s equated with the creative act within specifiedlimits. These limits are imposed by objects, which carry the creative imaginationin its effort to relate all elements into a unity or at least into a reflective relationship.Spatial juxtapositions determine progression, and reiteration of the same spaces,objects, and configurations determines the rhythm of the narrative.

Although critics have maintained that Robbe-Grillet wilfully confuses the spatio-temporal framework in Dans le Labyrinthe n order to create a dream-state, it seemsmore relevant to say that the work resembles a day-dream or a fantasy. The narratorimagines the soldier's narrative, but he fancies that the soldier arbitrarily links his

experiencein sequences which occur to him in misalliance. Every element in the

sequences of the soldier's story has some basis in his conscious experience so that,like the day residue in dreams, elements return in arbitrary sequence to repeatreal events as they have transpired in the soldier's life. The progression of thesescenes depends upon the soldier's present condition, which is sometimes feverishand continually fatigued, rather than upon a clear chronological presentation. Bycareful re-reading, however, a chronological sequence can be established.2 Then itbecomes evident that his story progresses from the street to the young woman'sapartment, to the barracks, to the cafe, back to the street where he is shot, andfinally to the original apartment where he dies. The entire story takes place in oneday, that night, and the following day upon which the soldier is shot andsubsequently dies.

1Grard Genette, 'Vertige fixe', in the 'Io/I8' edition of Dans leLabyrinthe I959 and I962), p. I96.2 See the meticulous restoration of this chronological sequence on a triple plane by James Lethcoe,

'The Structure of Robbe-Grillet's Labyrinth', French Review, 38 (I965), 497-506.

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E. T. RAHV 77

Dans le Labyrinthe ccurs predominantly in an eternal present tense. Robbe-Grillet's use of the passe compose, n particular, more nearly fits Sartre's definitionof that tense as a present than does Camus' use of it in L'Etranger.1 obbe-Grillet's

frequent use of past participles as modifiers, of present participles, and of the passivevoice, moreover, allows the present mood to prevail in Dans le Labyrinthe. ut thequestion of chronology in this novel has remained confused and generally mis-interpreted. A prosaic, progressive narrative thread develops in spite of dead ends,wrong turns, false starts, and blind alleys. Perception and memory and thought areoften confused, but not chronically or continuously; they have a logic of their ownspecific to this work.

Remembered impressions are most often noted in the imperfect, whereasremembered action is noted in the passe compose. Both past tenses are used inconjunction with the present for dramatic effect rather than to indicate temporality.The narrative consists

largelyof

description interspersedwith

infrequentscenes of

dialogue between the soldier and one other character. Often, the present-tensedialogue is framed by past-tense description. It is safe to assume that the entireevent has occurred previously when it is narrated in the past tense, but that partof it - the dialogue - is relived verbatim, and is therefore transcribed in thepresent tense. The present-tense dialogue enclosed by past description is merelya verbatim report of the soldier's memory made more striking by its contrast withits past context. This requires a shift in the reader's mind as point of view shiftsfrom the narrator's objective description to the soldier's verbatim memory of theincident.

During the first part of the narrative, in particular, while the soldier is lucid,his conscious memory retains many events verbatim. In such instances, he istransported back to the time and the place at which the event occurred so that it isreported as it happened, in the present tense. Drama slowly builds impetus in thenarrative until the soldier is shot. Then the climactic scene during which he isshot is recounted in the passe compose nd the rest of the story is narrated, for themost part, in past tenses. Events narrated in direct discourse in the past tense oftendescribe experiences through which the soldier passed unconsciously and whichare then reported to him by someone else. Reporting them to him during hisconscious moments relates them to the soldier's point of view. Close adherenceto his point of view allows the narrative thread of Dans le Labyrinthe o founderbetween past and present events, which are partly experienced, partly remembered,and joined in misalliance by the feverish soldier. This adherence to his point ofview leaves the soldier wandering in the labyrinth of living and dying, holding onto life even to the last, human in his stubborn obstinacy with regard to the box andfinding its owner. Committed to his dead comrade throughout, the soldier is assailedby the physical events of war, disease, and the cold, and confused by encounterswith other human beings. He is further confused by his own compulsions, paranoidfears, attempts to escape, to flee, and to communicate. The soldier becomes a

1 Sartre writes that Camus uses the perfect tense in L'Etranger s a 'succession de presents inertes'.(Jean-Paul Sartre, 'Explication de l'Etranger', Situations, 7 vols (I947-65), I, 121). See also RichardHoward's English translation of Dans le Labyrinthe n which the passe compose s consistently translated'has seen', 'has walked', 'has looked', rather than 'saw', 'walked', or 'looked'. The present effect inEnglish is similar to that described by Sartre.



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poignant example of the individual striving toward life in all its human endeavour,even while continuously losing ground in the throes of certain death.

The temporal sequence is dependent upon the soldier's experience. Either the

soldier's flashbacks interrupt his immediate experience or the narrator's inventivepreoccupations intervene in his story, so that both the narrator and the soldiercontinually interrupt the narrative progression. Both perspectives mix perceptionand fantasy. The first part of the narrative consists mostly of perception by contrastto the latter part which, particularly after the shooting, founders in constantfantasies and feverish sequences of former events which impose themselves on thedying soldier. The imperfect and the passe compose roliferate, therefore, in thelatter part of the narrative.1

One kind of past tense specifically relevant to Dans le Labyrinthe s one we shallcall the 'textual

past'since it refers

uniquelyto

objects, characters,and events

which have been alluded to previously in the text, but which do not completelymaterialize until described in the past tense. This is part of the creative processof the narrator's imagination. Robbe-Grillet's narrator begins his fictionalnarrative slowly. There are many instances of hesitation and selection between threepossibilities as the narrative takes shape in the mind of the narrator. Often, theimperfect tense or the passe compose ntroduced in a recurring scene is the reader'sfirst indication of which object, which character, or which event has been selectedas the correct one to be incorporated into the narrative. The past tense in theseinstances is one normally referring to the former textual suggestion rather than to achronological past occurrence.

In the initial introduction of an object on a table, for example, Robbe-Grilletfirst suggests vaguely that the figure of a cross on the table resembles a sort oftable knife which might be either a flower, or a human figurine, or perhaps a dagger(p. 13).2 In the next paragraph, his focus shifts from this cross-like form, 'dans ladirection indiquee par la queue de la fleur, ou par la pointe du poignard'- thusreducing the choice to either flower or dagger - to another adjacent circular form.Six pages later, he mentions an object on the mantel shaped like the same kind ofcross with four appendages. This cross-like igure is reflected as well in the analogousmotif of the wallpaper. The pattern of the wallpaper is smaller, however, andsuggests a small flower, a single clove, or a miniature torch. It is in this last

description that the narrator, and the author, reveal precisely the initial objectwhich originally suggested this metamorphosing cross motif. By indicating in thepast tense, in the imperfect in this instance, which one of the three initial suggestions

1 G. Genette has pointed out that in Le Voyeur he imperfect tense signifies only the protagonist'smemories from childhood, while the passe compose nd the present signify action in the immediatepast or in the present. He finds no consistent use of the past tense in Dans le Labyrinthe, ut on thecontrary, signals this book as one written in the tense 'le plus commode parce que le plus universel(a la fois descriptif et narratif): le present' ('Vertige fixe', p. 282). Olga Bernal bases her similarconclusion on Robbe-Grillet's statement about the present tense: 'Ce temps grammatical du presentchoisi par Robbe-Grillet, et auquel il se tient rigoureusement est celui qui convient le mieux a ladescription de l'motivitd pure. Une imagination, si elle est assez vive, est toujours au present[L'Annee derniere Marienbad, p. i6]' (Alain Robbe-Grillet, Le Roman de l'absence I964), p. I87). The

book by Jean Bloch-Michel, on the other hand, is based on the idea of the present tense as one whichlacks all sentiment and is therefore typical of all 'new novels' (Le Present de l'Indicatif: Essai sur lenouveau oman 963)).

2 Page references, hereafter within parentheses following quotations, are to the 1959 edition ofDans le Labyrinthe.

78



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The Past in 'Dans le Labyrinthe'

as he begins weaving a story from the fixed elements before his eyes. The boy is thefirst to materialize from the picture as a human actor. He is first presented innegative contrast to the soldier's glance. As is frequently the case in this novel,

negative enumeration suggests that what is not yet present will be present or thatwhat does not yet occur will occur.1 Any suggestion in the text, even if it is negative,might materialize. Even mentioning something in negative context gives it priorityfor realization and imprints itself on the reader's mind, so that upon occurrencefor the first time, it seems to recur. Robbe-Grillet constantly evokes this effect ofdeja vu. In the following passage, both the soldier and the boy are first mentionednegatively in order to place them on the stage for their first dialogue:Mais c'est comme si le soldat ne voyait pas l'enfant ni l'enfant ni rien d'autre. II a l'airde s'etre endormi de fatigue, assis contre a table, les yeux grands ouverts.

C'est 'enfant qui prononce es premieres aroles. II dit: Tu dors? II a parld res bas,comme s'il craignait de r6veiller e dormeur. Celui-ci n'a pas bronche. Au bout de quelquessecondes, 'enfant rdpete, a peine un peu plus haut:Tu dors? Et il ajoute, de la meme voix neutre, dgerement hantante: Tu peux pasdormir a, tu sais. (p. 30)It is usually upon the third suggestion that the object, or the character, materializes.Similar to the presentation of the boy, the soldier is heard first only as a sound ofheels on the pavement (p. I ), secondly, he appears as 'une hanche, un bras, uneepaule' (p. i6) leaning against a lamp-post, and finally he materializes as 'le soldat'who carries a package under his arm (p. 20). Then he is included as one of thethree soldiers in the picture (p. 26) before he takes part in the first dialogue of thenarrative cited above.

At first he remains inanimate and scarcely able to speak until after the boy hasprodded him several times with questions to which the soldier responds am-biguously, ' Non . . . Oui ... Je sais , dit le soldat' (p. 30). His lips do not move,at least the boy does not see them move, until the soldier's barely audible remark,' Ton pere ... commence le soldat. Puis il s'arrete. Mais cette fois les levres ontlegerement remue' (p. 31). In this first sketchy dialogue, the soldier and the boysituate each other within the fictional field by movement, by coming to life aspuppets on a stage. Although the entire description of the picture just precedingthis dialogue is made in the present by the narrator, the description of the soldierand the boy preceding this initial dialogue is made in the past tense. The narrator's

visual perception, then, is recounted in the present, his imaginative creation of thestory veers off into the imperfect.The narrator is not situated in relation to what he imagines of the soldier. He

is only situated at the beginning in the room from which he draws elements out ofwhich he spins the story of a dying soldier.2 While spinning the story, his point ofview turns inward toward a descriptive narration of the soldier's actions in the pasttense. Most of the time, however, he identifies with the soldier, or at least allows his

1 'Ces negations sont peut-etre ce qui nous rapproche le plus de la technique baroque qui consistea particulariser un objet en envisageant son contraire, bien que le negation elle-meme repose icisur une analogie' (C. Brooke-Rose, 'L'imagination baroque de Robbe-Grillet', Un Nouveau Roman?Recherches t traditions, dited byJ. H. Mathews, Revue des Lettres Modernes, Nos 94-9 (I964), p. 150).

2 The first sentence of Dans le Labyrinthe s, 'Je suis seul ici, maintenant, bien a l'abri.' 'Je', 'ici',and 'maintenant', being always true, or obtaining invariably to anyone at the present moment,posit the atemporal domain of a narrator eternally present but not situated in relation to what isnarrated. This sentence describes a protected, passive state; it does not integrate the narrator by anyaction, comment, or judgement into his fictional field.

8o



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returning to the present action of the narrative. This concluding description marksthe end of the soldier's internal flashback before returning to his present perceptionof himself and the boy just entering the cafe:

I1 n'est jamais, en tout cas, parvenu a aucun boulevard, a aucune voie plus large ou plant6ed'arbres, ou differente en quoi que ce fat. L'enfant avait fini par pr6ciser quelques noms, lesquelques noms de rues qu'il connaissait, evidemment inutilisables.

II tape maintenant son beret d'un geste vif contre le montant de bois. (p. 38)

Since the soldier's point of view is contained within the narrator's, this entire

passage can be read as the narrator's fantasy rather than the soldier's memory, or

perhaps as the narrator's fantasy and the soldier's memory. In both cases, however,the past tenses here mark the inward-turning direction of the narrative toward

memory and fantasy before returning to the present progression of the story.Again marking a shift to internal memory, the following negative description

occurs in the past. Rather than a flashback, this passage may be considered a'flashforward', to anglicize Bernard Pingaud's 'retour en avant'.1 The soldier inthe following passage thinks he may have passed in front of the barracks without

seeing them; the kind of barracks he has not seen is subsequently described. This

description is made in the present tense, but is followed by the soldier's denial ofever having seen a barracks of such classical structure. Much later in the novel(on page 184), another flashback of the soldier reveals that this is indeed the verybarracks he has formerly seen where his comrade died. Since the reader of the

following passage is not yet aware of the incident of his comrade's death, however,this earlier negative description seems obscure; it recalls a scene which has not yetbeen

reportedin the narrative. The scene is described in such detail that it seems to

have already been experienced by the soldier in spite of its negations:Sans s'en apercevoir, il est peut-etre pass6 devant une caserne, au cours de ses p6r6grinations.Cependant il n'a pas remarqu6 de batisse dans le style traditionnel: une constructionbasse ... (description here in present tense)

Le soldat n'a rien vu de tel. II n'a long6 aucune grille; il n'a pas apersu de vaste coursemee de gravier; il n'a rencontre ni feuillages touffus ni guerites, ni bien entendu defactionnaires en armes. II n'a meme pas emprunte le moindre boulevard plant6 d'arbres.II n'a parcouru toujours que lesmemes rues rectilignes, entre deux hautes files de facadesplates; mais une caserne peut aussi revetir cette apparence. Les guerites ont ete enlevees,naturellement, ainsi que tout ce qui pouvait distinguer l'immeuble dans la s6rie de ceuxqui l'entourent; il ne subsiste que les barreaux de fer qui protegent les fenetres. ... (pp. 73-4)

This description continues in the present tense including this time details of thebarracks which he does see and is passing.

Robbe-Grillet's most curious use of the past tense occurs at the climax of thesoldier's story. The scenes of shooting the soldier and of bringing his body to theyoung woman's apartment are the two longest passages of the book narrated in thepast tense. In the first instance, the past tense is used to describe the soldier and theboy hiding from the enemy invader. The use of the past tense here is peculiar, since

1 Bernard Pingaud, Dans le Labyrinthe d'Alain Robbe-Grillet', Les Lettres ouvelles, ew Series,No. 24 (7 October 1959), pp. i8-

I. J. Bloch-Michel points out this same technique in the novelsof Claude Simon: 'On fait ainsi allusion a des evenements qui ne seront dcrits que plus tard, et'on

se refere a des propos qu'on reproduira nsuite. C'est-a-dire ue ce dont on parle en ce moment nesera connu et compris que plus tard, le devoilement du fait en question etant progressif, e faisantpar approches uccessivesmais dispersees u cours du r6cit' (Le Present e 'Indicatif, . 28).



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E. T. RAHV 83

the action occurs during its description. Perhaps the narrator's perspective againtakes over the narrative at this point, causing its action to occur in the past tense.Whether or not this is true, the dramatic effect of the scene is certainly enhanced

by its unusual narration in the past. The suspense of the scene is toned down by itsrunning past-tense description; at the same time, its drama is heightened by itslengthy contrast to the present-tense text which precedes and follows it. The interest-ing contrast within this past-tense passage is its exceptionally short paragraph inthe present tense describing the two enemy soldiers on their motor-cycle. Since thepassage is too long to quote in its entirety, its action might best be summarized andthen followed by a short excerpt in order to demonstrate its dramatic effect.

The first warning of the approaching enemy is the distant sound of a motorwhich sets off description in the past tense. The boy urges the weary soldier to hisfeet and they both crouch together in a doorway in order to escape the ever-louder

approachingmotor. At the

appearanceof the

enemysoldiers on their motor-

cycle, description of them suddenly switches to the present tense, lending them anominous presence by contrast to the preceding past description. With theirdisappearance at the end of the street, the narrative returns to the past tense forthe remainder of the incident at the end of which the soldier is shot, drags himselfinto hiding, and loses consciousness ust as the boy discovers him. Either the pointof view has shifted to the narrator-doctor who watches this scene from afar and isnarrating it as he witnessed it, as he imagines it occurred, or the past tense is againused for purely literary reasons, to emphasize this entire incident by contrastingtenses. The following passage exemplifies the dramatic presence of the enemysoldiers when description of them reverts to the present in the middle of actiondescribed in the past:

C'est alors qu'ils ont entendu e bruit, tres lointain, de la motocyclette. Le gamin a, lepremier, dressd 'oreille; l a ouvert a bouche un peu plus et sa tete a pivotd, graduellement,. . C'6tait un side-car, monte par deux soldats casquds; l avancait au ralenti, au milieude la chaussee, dans la neige intacte.

Les deux hommes e presentent e profil. Le visage du conducteur, itud en avant, est aun niveau plus elevd que celui de son compagnon, assis en contre-bas ur le siege lateral.Ils ont sensiblement es memes raits ous les deux ...

Ils sont passes sans se retourner, t ils ont continue tout droit, apres e carrefour. Aubout d'une vingtaine de metres, ls ont disparu derriere 'angle de l'immeuble ormant ecoin d'en face. (pp. I64-70)

The present-tense description of the soldiers is based upon direct perception ofthem, whereas the past-tense description relates the action of this scene. The enemypresence silences the hustle and conversation preceding their arrival; the descrip-tion of them seems to represent the calm centre of a whirling tornado during whichthe weight of their concrete presence cannot be avoided.

Beginning at this point in the narrative, the past tenses proliferate as the soldiernears death. As he progressively oses his grasp of reality and passes through longerperiods of unconsciousness, the action narrated in the past correlates with hislosing touch with life. Intermittently, his moments of lucidity appear as detailed

present descriptions of the room or of the characters surrounding him. Sometimeshe joins together, in the present tense, disconnected flashbacks which relate to hispresent surroundings, in a desperate effort to hold on to life. He frantically andobsessively describes his surroundings in detail in order to stay alive until the very



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84 The Past in 'Dans le Labyrinthe'

last, when his final glance moves from the table leg upward to the table top, andfrom there further upward toward the ceiling as his eyes close in death.

Many past-tense passages included in this final section of the soldier's narrative

summarize long speeches related to him in indirect discourse but which are hereset off only by a tense change. These range from short interjections of anothercharacter's speech to longer reports constituting an entire incident. The followingexample of this use of the past tense demonstrates that here the past does refer toan anterior event, but one which is reported to the soldier for the first time bythe woman:La jeune femme, elle, n'a pas boug6 de sa chaise; et elle rdpond sans trop se faire prier, sansdoute pour que le blesse se tienne tranquille. C'est l'enfant qui est venu lui dire que le soldatdont elle s'etait occupee la veille gisait sans connaissance, dans une entree de maison, aquelques rues de chez eux, recroqueville sur lui-meme, ne parlant plus, n'entendant rien,ne remuant pas plus que s'il etait mort. Elle avait aussitot decide de s'y rendre. Un homme

se trouvait deja pres du corps, un civil, qui passait a ce moment, par hasard, disait-il, maisqui semblait en fait avoir assist6 de loin a toute la scene, etc.... (pp. 198-201)

In conclusion, then, one can summarize Robbe-Grillet's uses of the past inDans le Labyrinthe n the following way: as long as the narrator hesitantly formulateshis narrative, the choices of these are multiple and at first seem to confound pastand present. Once into the narrative, however, the soldier's perspective determinestense in that even if an event has chronologically preceded the moment at which itis reported, the narrative nevertheless remains in the present tense faithfully report-ing the event as present to the soldier's vision. In general, therefore, the action takes

place in the present as do the dialogues and, in many instances, as does recall,though any of these may appear in the past in a seemingly arbitrary fashion.

Although the past sometimes serves to report chronologically anterior events, itprincipally serves literary purposes of transition, of dramatic contrast, and ofcorrelation with the soldier's half-conscious states as death approaches. Theappearance of the past tense in Dans le Labyrinthe ndicates an inward-turning ofperspective toward memory and fantasy, or it indicates a climactic moment in thestory rather than an anterior moment as is normally expected. In this sense thepast serves an aesthetic rather than a temporal function in Dans le Labyrinthe.

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS E. T. RAHV
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