The unintended reader: feminism and Manon Lescaut Book

This new study of Manon Lescaut draws on current debates in psychoanalysis, feminism, and literary criticism. It has two principal aims: to analyse this story of a young man's passion for a femme fatale as it is presented by the narrator; and to suggest ways in which feminist criticism can help explain how the text operates. The volume is in three parts. In Part I, Dr Segal offers a close reading of Manon Lescaut in which the narrator's relationship with language is the key issue. Part 11 considers four central themes which are present in the text's language and structure: money, the image of the woman, the concept of the double, and fatality. In the final part the author presents a feminist critique of Freud and Lacan, and develops thereby an original version of the Oedipus Complex which is brought to bear on Manon Lescaut.