Moderato Cantabile: Love and Death

Abstract

Anne Desbaredes is the protagonist of Moderato Cantabile, published in 1958. It is a simple story of a non-adultery that reveals the secrets of a married woman with the owner of a factory. Anne’s life starts changing when she hears the shooting which kills a woman in a bar. This provokes some effects in her heart. She lets herself be led by the desire of an impossible passion. But the transgression of this woman is not only a story of love and treason, but also a “mirroring narrative” that develops from the refl ection about this crime. Moderato Cantabile is considered a novel that marks a change in the work of Marguerite Duras: from it on, the writer does not use the traditional model and does not show preoccupation with the psychological aspects, she starts making use of a lacunar writing, “vibrating”, suggestive, because it is impossible to tell about the “unnamable”. Keywords: Duras. French Literature. Mirroring Narrative. Woman. Love. Death.