Le blanc – symbole de la dégradation psychique dans le récit court maupassantien. De l’oubli de la raison à la folie
White – symbol of psychic degradation in Maupassant’s short stories. From reason to madness

Summary/Abstract: This article was written with the aim of drawing attention to the chromatico-symbolic use of white color in Guy de Maupassant’s short prose, which reveals one of the writer’s recurring themes that has been the subject of numerous research work during the nineteenth century, namely madness. Guy de Maupassant’s short stories report an abundant number of “lunatics”, disconnected from reality (memory) and “sunk” into madness. Forgetting the quality of being rational is strongly impacted by a major trigger: the age. Symbolically reigned by the white color, the ol“ age pla”s the card of madness in Maupassant’s prose, illustrating characters who approach dementia at the sight of white objects or apparitions. We therefore propose to make visible the notion of “psychological-chromism” through a chromatic and symbolic analysis of this color related to Maupassantian psychologies.

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