Abstract: Des Esseintes decides to withdraw from the world to be incognito, to go into hiding. Through the third person account, and through a seductive formula of hiding/showing, the reader catches glimpses of the meanderings of the protagonist’s subconscious. À rebours represents the start of the author’s Catholic work. The character is in a distant place and like God but loses both of them. How does the character travel in the search for his ontological secret between aesthetics and contemplative meditation?
