Krisztina KAPOSI, The metamorphosis of nymph Syrinx: The eternal fidelity of the Adulterous Woman (Camus: La femme adultère). > 99
Camus’ La femme adultère is one of those works which depict an artistic portray of merciless solitude, seemingly definitive loneliness and the painful feeling of the vanity of vanities (vanitatum vanitas). In the following, I will argue that its unique value and speciality lies in the mythological frame surrounding the text, the story relating nymph Syrinx’ transformation in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Met. I, 689–712.). In my study, I intend to analyse how this mythological framework makes Camus’ twice unfaithful wife the symbol of eternal fidelity.
The Adulterous Woman, the title of this short story is a judgement, which pins down the fact that the protagonist has committed adultery. However, the short story itself leaves us in the dark concerning the question of what constituted the act of infidelity in the text, and in this sense, the title can be considered a question, as well, which leaves us wondering about the meaning of adultery and faithfulness. There are many signs at the beginning of the short story which foreshadow an extramarital affair: the spiritual struggles of Janine who is unhappily married to the textile merchant Marcel, the description of Janine’s agonizing thoughts, the sympathetic attitude of the French soldier, and the unobtrusive non-verbal communication between the soldier and the heroine seem to prepare the reader for the description of an act of infidelity. However, it is important to note that the short story does not contain any direct allusions to this matter. The figure of the French soldier becomes gradually relegated to the background, until he is almost eliminated from the horizon of the reader, with the sole exception of the end of the short story when his character is evoked again in the vision of an increasingly transcendent final scene. There Janine gets absorbed in a strange mystic-natural experience with the desert landscape, which is reminiscent of a sexual act.
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