ABSTRACT
Nineteenth-century concierges were a lightning rod for writers and historians, portraying them in a negative light as foolish, tongue-in-cheek, and despicable. Even in the 20th and 21st centuries, the narrative of the concierge is controlled in most literature or films. In L’Élégance du hérisson, on the other hand, the author tells more than half of the story with Renée, the concierge, as one of the narrators, breaking the traditional narrative style and subverting the traditional image of women while also presenting class differences in a more intimate way. This paper explores feminine wisdom writing by focusing on two imageries, the door, and the concierge, through Jungian psychology's theory of personality masks theory and textual analysis methods. The door provides an important contribution to Renée's disguise in work, giving Renée a different identity in a demarcated space, as well as giving the door a more cultural significance. Through the role of the concierge, author Muriel Barbery gives her the subjectivity of free expression and reimagines the traditional French woman.
