29 pages • 58 minutes read
Madame de La FayetteThe Princesse de Clèves (The Princess of Cleves)
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1678A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Portraiture
Historical portraiture displays its subjects at their most beautiful and worthy of contemplation, and the commission of it is a gesture toward keeping up appearances, an important part of courtly life. In portraiture, the setting is well-appointed, and the subject always viewed at his or her best angle. It is ironic, then, that portraiture in The Princesse de Clèves does so much to reveal, rather than disguise, the imperfections of its main characters. When M. de Nemours steals Mme de Clèves’s portrait, he creates a rift in the subtle game they’ve been playing, making his desire for her something he can no longer playfully deny or retract. Later, when she purchases painting bearing his likeness, he takes it as an invitation to continue spying on her.
The Color Yellow
Mme de Clèves complains that, due to her blonde hair, she cannot wear yellow. Consequently, M. de Nemours takes it up as his flag in various public tournaments as a subtle gesture toward the object of his affection. In private, we witness the princess trying on different yellow ribbons she wouldn’t dare to wear in public. The color yellow becomes a symbol of her interiority and vulnerability. She desires to be seen in yellow just as she desires M. de Nemours, but she can have neither.
Fate
Fealty to royalty is akin to playing one’s part in fate, for who rules and who serves under a feudal system is determined by accident of birth, death, or royal succession, none of which are under an individual’s control. Nonetheless, the soothsayer seems to say we do have our part to play in fate, which has its own rules for behavior even in a fatalistic society. In this way, the King is perhaps within his right to question the soothsayer’s astrological predictions as silly magic (while still holding on to all the power and paraphernalia of kingship), but he is not free to ignore them on a whim. His entourage begs him not to participate in the duel that the soothsayer predicted would lead to his death, yet he does it anyway, and his subsequent death throws the court into turmoil.
This turmoil also accelerates the narrative downfall of the three central characters. As members of the court, they too are fated by their important and very visible roles. Like the King, they are punished for straying too far from those roles. Worse still, poor behavior on a courtier’s part unleashes a chain of fated events that affects everyone in their vicinity. Simply being noticed by the badly behaved M. de Nemours draws Mme de Clèves into a web of unhappiness and failure.
