ABSTRACT
Despite its focus on objective reality, Robbe-Grillet insisted, the nouveau roman is entirely subjective-its world is always perceived through the eyes of a character, not an omniscient narrator. In Le Voyeur (1955; The Voyeur), this narrative perspective is expressed in the title. In La jalousie (1957; jealousy), the narrating "absence-presence" is a jealous husband. Instead of analyzing, in Proustian fashion, the effects of his wife's suspected betrayal on his heart and mind, the narrator spies on his wife and her alleged lover through the openings of a Venetian blind (jalousie in French) and meticulously describes the "cut-up" reality filtered through this device.
