Between day and night: the duality in La Morte amoureuse, by Theophile Gautier

Abstract

In this essay, we analyze the short story La Morte Amoureuse (1881), a short-story staged in the backdrop of Theophile Gautier's dedication to the representation of the fantastic in the early phase of his literary career. In the text, the fragmentation of the protagonist, Romuald, is drawn through the antagonism between Clarimonde and Serapion. Through the Foucaultian idea of sexuality constituted by regulatory discourses and the Freudian concept of Unheimliche (the uncanny), we broach how the double outlined in the constitution of the main character and his conflicts throughout a fictional world beyond the church enclave.