Embedded narratives and narrative competition in the work of Prévost and Marivaux

This article aims to evaluate the competition between narrative instances produced by the integration of embedded narratives within first-person narratives, by drawing on the antagonistic models developed by Prévost and Marivaux. In Prévost’s narrative fiction, the embedded narrative is subordinate to the integrating dynamic of the frame story, whereas Marivaux turns the embedding away from its primary function by constructing it as an emancipated sequence, a free evolution of the novel.