SOURCE: Mileham, James W. “Desert, Desire, Dezesperance: Space and Play in Balzac's La Duchesse de Langeais.” Nineteenth-Century French Studies 31, nos. 3 & 4 (spring-summer 2003): 210-25.

In the following essay, Mileham discusses the metaphor of movement through space in La Duchesse de Langeais, arguing that the spatial dynamics are represented in two modes: games and rituals.

Critics haven't neglected La Duchesse de Langeais, but no one has yet fully demonstrated the importance of this novella's principal metaphor: movement through space.¹ Travel towards and away from the other, placing and overcoming obstacles, losing and finding one's way—such spatial images abound in this novella. In fact, this love story can be adequately summarized by its spatial dynamics: General Armand de Montriveau pursues Antoinette, Duchess of Langeais, while she holds him off; he kidnaps and then releases her, after which, she pursues him and he rebuffs her advances; finally, she flees and he searches...