Narrative functions of the automobile in the French novel from the turn of the twentieth century to the inter-war period

Abstract

This article seeks to examine the narrative functions of the automobile in the French novel from the turn of the twentieth century until the interwar period. From the perspective of historical poetics of modern modes of transport, six novels published between 1902 and 1925 are analysed. After showing how the automobile is inserted into these narratives whether in terms of characterisation and narrative composition, or by means of comparison and competition with other modes of transport, the article aims to show that the narrative function of the automobile is the ability to recompose both the fictional world and the narrative, now set in the context of an industrialised time and space, in a tension between fragmentation and continuity.