SOURCE: "The Subversion of the Narrator in Mérimée's La Venus d'Ille," in Nineteenth-Century French Studies, Vol. X, Nos. 3-4, Spring-Summer, 1982, pp. 268-77.

In the following essay, Porter investigates the emotional repression of the narrator in La Vénus d'Ille.

Typical of the fantastic in general, La Vénus d'Ille (1837) associates sexuality with destruction and madness.¹ A bronze statue of Venus apparently comes to life and kills a bridegroom on his wedding night, because he had betrothed himself to her by placing a ring on her finger.² If one invokes the main psychological principle for interpreting fantasy—the strongest distortion reveals the greatest affect—then surely Mérimée colors the initiation into mutual sexuality with fascination and terror. Similar reactions to emotional and physical intimacy reappear in later stories. After the title character of Carmen (1845) has seduced the protagonist, she identifies herself with the Devil. Halfman...