SOURCE: Bouvier, Luke. “How Not to Speak of Incest: Atala and the Secrets of Speech.” Nineteenth-Century French Studies 30, nos. 3-4 (spring-summer 2002): 228-42.

In the following essay, Bouvier looks at Atala in relationship to René to examine the motif of incest in the former. Using a Derridean approach, Bouvier focuses on the structures of silence and secrecy, addressing the paradoxical nature of incest’s dual presence and absence in Chateaubriand's work.

How not to speak of incest in Atala? The subject would seem to be unavoidable, for Chateaubriand's exotic tale of the doomed love of Chactas and Atala has frequently been read precisely through its evident thematic parallels in this regard with René: as the story of an incestuous passion between brother and sister, along with its inevitable prohibition. This “incestuous” influence of René on the critical reception of Atala has of course not been unwarranted, since the two...