Duras, Marguerite - Doris T. Wight (essay date 1988)

Doris T. Wight (essay date 1988)

SOURCE: “A Game Played: ‘Moderato Cantabile,’” in The USF Language Quarterly, Vol. XXVI, Nos. 3-4, Spring-Summer, 1988, pp. 32-4.

[In the following essay, Wight asserts that the principal characters of Moderato cantabile work out their issues through Freudian game-playing.]

Game-playing can surely provide a major sport for both participants and viewers. And game-playing can supply dangerous sport—both psychologically (in actual life) and allogorically (in literature). In Marguerite Duras' story Moderato Cantabile, for instance, a real-life problem faced by many women is depicted on the page, here, while a little boy watched by his mother takes a lesson from his piano teacher, a certain meaningful play is being played.

Sigmund Freund described another game played by another child that might throw light on the piano lesson scene in Moderato Cantabile. The child Freud...

[The entire page is 3620 words long]

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