THE DEVELOPMENT AND THE DEGRADATION OF A PROUSTIAN CHARACTER: THE BARON DE CHARLUS

Abstract

The article will follow the perpetual development of the character of baron de Charlus in the Proustian novel, his appearance, his discovery, his greatness and his fall, according to the theories of morality and the plasticity of literary forms. Beginning with the moment of the first meeting with the Narrator, when the character of Charlus is described in segments through his piercing gaze or the dynamics of his movements and gestures, he is represented as informal, as an energy and not as as a fixed form. The excesses of his character, which are in accord with his genius and talent for discourse, reveal the excessiveness of his passion and destabilize his image. As one of the most complex characters, Charlus is a man and a woman, aristocrat and underground man, French and Oriental.