The intertextuality of Roland Barthes's "The Lover's Discourse" in Jeffrey Eugenides novel "The Marriage Plot" (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2021 in the subject Literature - Comparative Literature, grade: 1,7, University of Göttingen, language: English, abstract: The aim of this paper is to explore the different intertextual links between the two literary works. While the main character Madeleine deconstructs Barthes's deconstruction of love in her term paper and applies it to her own life, the narrator deconstructs Madeleine's love life and this paper should deconstruct the narration's deconstruction of the relationship.

If the concept of love is to be seen as an architectural building consisting of a foundation, roofs, walls, floors, stairs, openings, standing in a specific location and having a personal interior design, it can be disassembled into its individual parts. Even though most buildings are different and fewest are identical, they all share the same basic elements they are built of. The French philosopher Roland Barthes breaks down the concept of love into its fragments in his work "A Lover's Discourse" (1977). 34 years later, the American novelist Jeffrey Eugenides publishes a romance novel, "The Marriage Plot" (2011), where Barthes's fragments are a reference point to the narrator. Some of these fragments are direct quotes, but most remain unsaid, lying under the surface.

Finding all fragments would go beyond the constraints of this paper. Thus, the focus should be on only a few fragments. In particular, focusing on the most prominent main character's perspective, while the plot contains two more discourses on love from the main character's love interests.