Cousin Bette Literary Elements

Cousin Bette Literary Elements

Genre

A French novel

Setting and Context

The action takes place in the middle of the 19 century in Paris, France.

Narrator and Point of View

The narrator of the novel is a third person, who narrates about the life of the Parisians and society.

Tone and Mood

The mood is romantic due to the love affairs between the main characters such as Valerie, Wenceslas, Bette, Hector, Hortense and others. In addition, the novel has ironic mood, because the author used a lot of irony to make the characters a bit comic.

Protagonist and Antagonist

The main protagonist is Adeline Hulot. The main antagonist is Valerie Marneffe.

Major Conflict

In this novel, there are enough conflicts, but the main one happens due to Valerie’s fault. Valerie Marneffe seduces almost all the men of this novel and the love relationships of many heroines with their husbands destroy because of her ignorance and intrigues.

Climax

The climax happens, when Henri Montes de Montejanos kills Valerie (he poisons her), because she ruined the relationships of many characters.

Foreshadowing

N/A

Understatement

N/A

Allusions

The novel alludes to the epistolary novel “Les Liaisons dangereuses” by Pierre Ambroise François Choderlos de Laclos; Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (a French philosopher, culinary expert, lawyer, economist, politician and musician); Greek mythology (a monster Medusa); Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier (a French physicist and chemist).

Imagery

Widely used in character descriptions

Paradox

The main paradox is Adeline’s love. Despite the fact that her husband Hector is cheating on her, Adeline continues to love and take care of him. It is not possible, because when a loved one hurts, you start hating him.

Parallelism

There is a parallel of love and hatred in the book. While Adeline Hulot faithfully loves her husband, Hector hates her and spends time with other women.

Metonymy and Synecdoche

Honoré de Balzac uses as a metonymy the phrase “Shakespeare’s Tempest”. In this way, he describes the love relationship between Bette and Wenceslas, which is full of humiliations, sorrows and quarrels.

Personification

The poison that kills Valerie personifies the killer and death.
Bette personifies Hatred and Revenge, as implacable as they are in Italy, Spain, and Asia. These two feelings are, together, the obverse of friendship and love.
Madame Marneffe personifies the type of those ambitious married courtesans who from the first accept depravity with all its consequences, and determine to make a fortune while taking their pleasure, perfectly unscrupulous as to the means.

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