La Cousine Bette and the House Divided

La Cousine Bette and the House Divided Cheryl L. Thomas B Y THE USE OF MYTHOLOGICAL AND BIBLICAL allusions, that fill the pages of La Cousine Bette, Balzac creates a series of oppositions that accentuate many of his themes, and illuminate the denouement of the novel.1Although the allusions are rarely faithful to the original texts, the distortions that they undergo strengthen the ironic tone of the novel. To reverse the ostensible sense of the allusions and to create new readings of them will help to explain the characters and their actions, for the characters have their own readings of the stories they refer to. The use of allusion is one of the most interesting techniques in the novel, and requires that the reader bear in mind the source of the referential comparison. Whether they emanate from the narrator or from the characters themselves, the references produce a network of comparisons that reveals a hidden significance in the narrative. Reading the mythology of La Cousine Bette has excited little interest in readers or critics.2But the great number of mythological and biblical allusions and references in this novel contribute to the richness of the narrative. The allusions elucidate the plot and accentuate the action. David Bellos formulates a reading of the biblical references in which he subordinates them to the Napoleonic myth, the essential myth in the novel (148). Hava Sussmann finds in some of the same biblical allusions a technique which exerts a comic effect on the novel (276). The references create contradictions and point to actions that resolve an ambiguous and controversial ending. All the references involve the image of the primal struggle to establish a house, a city, a lasting existence, or a familial heri­ tage. Balzac’s references deliver resonances that echo the urgency of the conflict between those who build and those who destroy. They establish a tension between two opposing forces engaged in a battle to the death. Both the face value content of the references and their distorted form bear upon the action. The struggle exists on two levels: in the references and in the novel. The mythological allusions have importance far out of proportion to their numerical occurrence. They are crucial to a thorough reading of the novel, signaling several themes of the work and preparing very basic groundwork of the intrigue. When the narrator first introduces Adeline VOL. XXXI, No. 3 49 L ’E spr it C r éa te u r Hulot he places her in the company of a group of notably beautiful women such as Diane de Poitiers, Mme du Barry, and Mme Recamier. The narrator says of them: . . toutes ces femmes, restées belles en dépit des années . . . ont dans la taille, dans la charpente, dans le carac­ tère de la beauté des similitudes frappantes, et à faire croire qu’il existe dans l’océan des générations un courant aphrodisien d’où sortent toutes ces Vénus, filles de la même onde salée!” (75). The narrator explicitly evokes the physical beauty of Venus, but the goddess’s personality traits are important in the novel. Venus suggests two opposing significations. Born of sea foam, she has a sweet and gentle nature; she is the laughterloving goddess. But she is also the cruel and malevolent goddess that Racine evokes in Phèdre. The comparison of Adeline to Venus is not completely apt because Adeline is neither sea born nor cruel. The allusion emphasizes her physi­ cal beauty which puts her on the level of the goddess of love and beauty. But again and again in the novel, the narrator disputes the notion that Adeline is Venus. Rather, she is clumsy in matters of sexual love. At first resistant to Crevel’s suggestion that she sacrifice her body to him in order to procure a dowry for her daughter, she ultimately begs him to fulfill his offer in order to save her husband from ruin. Her entreaty is not that of a courtisan. Adeline is not accustomed to communicating with a philan­ derer. The narrator comments that she does not know how to get what she wants without asking directly for it. She...