ABSTRACT
The technique perfected by Gide in his first-person narratives lent itself at the outset to a certain psychological analysis. This concentrated on the tell-tale traces in the story in which the deluded narrator, unaware of the full implications of what he or she is saying, provides clues for the alert reader to see a fuller picture. Developments in critical theory beginning in the 1960s highlighted the formal devices involved in telling stories. A by-product of this perspective was to highlight the extent to which literature and literary practices form an integral part of the characters' lives. In a theatrically ritualistic request, she also specifies that she is to be buried wearing the amethyst cross which she had wanted Jerome to give to the daughter he might father one day. What should have been private and unnoticed has become part of a public symbolic ceremonial staged for the benefit of Jerome as worshipper or as reader of the Journal.
