Truismes and Truths

The novels of Marie Darrieussecq have been written against the backdrop of robust debates in France concerning theories of the mind. Her work from 1998 onwards can be read as foregrounding a cognitive representation of mental operations, yet it also contains references to the classical themes of psychoanalysis. My argument examines ways in which her first novel, Truismes, might be brought into the forum of these debates. It explores the tension between a sociological reading of the formation of the self and one which highlights the role of psychical structures, drawn from the work of Freud and Lacan, in the formation and transformation of Darrieussecq's protagonist. My aim is to convey to readers an immediate sense of the formative power of the Freudo-lacanian psychical structures and the possibilities which arise from exploring Darrieussecq's fictional narrator as a potential Lacanian case study.