The «ecological character» in love in Pauline Delabroy-Allard’s ‘Ça raconte Sarah’ (2018)

Abstract

In this article, the aim is to analyze the construction of a character in love from an ecological point of view: the homodiegetic and feminine narrator of Pauline Delabroy-Allard’s Ça raconte Sarah published by the Éditions de Minuit in 2018. The notions of «ecological character» (Stéphanie Posthumus), «mesh» (Timothy Morton) and «phenomenological nodes» (Camille Froidevaux-Metterie) are mobilized to propose an ecological and feminist reading on the novel. It presents a passionate love between two women, and more specifically a lesbian initiation (Margot Lachkar), which troubles the identity to the point of transforming the characters’ representations. We then comment on a fantastic modality used to narrate traumatic events when the death of the beloved woman looms. Finally, the influence of fiction and criticism on the readers’ symbolic representations is interrogated.