Space and Language: Rachilde's La Tour d'amour and the Tower of Babel

Abstract

In this article I analyze the relationships between space and the main characters in La Tour d’amour, by Rachilde. More specifically I focus on how space has already stunned one of the character’s speech and communicative abilities and it is now in the process of impairing speech in the other. By analyzing the novelist’s use of myths, references to the divinity and, especially, the many instances that offer evidence of widespread corruption in the characters’ language, I show how the lighthouse in which the characters dwell can be interpreted as a decadent Tower of Babel