Abstract
Based on a reading of the book Literature and Evil by the philosopher Georges Bataille, this article analyzes the notion of Evil present in Marcel Proust’s novel In Search of Lost Time, taking as the basis the narrator’s (un)satisfied relationship with his beloved Albertine, and also the notion of deviation established by the narrator regarding certain characters’ homosexuality. From (un)satisfaction and sexual deviance, Proust’s work may have some aspects in common with Bataille’s Evil, as for him these topics also become the basis of a narrative structure which, through discursive movement, moves away increasingly from the space of Good, which would become the space of satisfaction, standard behavior and objectivity. In Search of Lost Time is thus configured as the space of error, of ambiguity, of deviation ─ the space of Evil.
Keywords:
Marcel Proust; deviance; homosexuality; evil; Georges Bataille