Au commencement il était le Soi

Abstract

By reviewing two famous episodes, in which the Narrator fails to efficiently communicate with Gilberte and Albertine, we attempt to construct a theory, able to explain Marcel’s communicative strategy. In order for a desired meaning to appear in the addressee’s mind, it first behooves the issuer to present the latter with a hermeneutical problem. The article argues that the communication, envisioned by the Narrator, can succeed only if the issuer of the message also becomes an interpreter of himself. As soon as this scattering of Ego happens, a hermeneutic situation presents itself as an operating room, where a fragmented Ego undergoes its reconstitution back into a coherent communicating entity.