Abstract

Literary criticism has made the work of Pierre Benoit, French novelist of the first part of the twentieth century, a whole dividable into two categories: the first comprised of the "exotic" novels and the second regrouping the novels considered "du terroir". Beyond this narrow barrier of geographical differentiation, this thesis aims to show that this bipolarity is but a mirage and that, throughout his writing career, it is the same pattern that Pierre Benoit has scrupulously observed, regardless of the novelistic space. A formal study of "du terroir" novels – those least investigated by critics –, of narrative methods employed in these writings as well as of some types of interactions that they encompass allows the establishment of a 'benoitian method'. Similarly, analysis of the relationship between novelistic space and character highlights a way of proceeding which demonstrates a Modernity opposite and before its time, the novel’s staging approaching that of ancient tragedy while their most iconic heroine oddly reminds us of François Mauriac’s Therese Desqueyroux. Finally, these first results, once subjected to comparison with some of the more "exotic" works of Benoit, confirm other similarities and resemblances that we presaged between them and "du terroir" writings, mainly concerning the characters in presence and the use of novelistic spatiality.