From the Unfinished to the Absent Character as an Allegory of the Writing Process in Le Ravissement de Lol V. Stein

In declaring that Le Ravissement de Lol V. Stein is “the novel of the de-person”, Duras unveils that the novel is based on a void, built around a hollow character. We explore the question of identity by examining, within the manuscripts held at the IMEC, a process of character development that is never complete. The Durassian character, this “de-person”, also calls into question common preconceptions on the representation of being within literature.