This article intends to study the images of decay in the posthumous novel by Joseph Malègue (1876-1940), Black Stones. The Middle Classes of Salvation (1958). It offers three levels of analysis: historical-social, aesthetic and philosophical. Interconnected, they correspond to one another. Firstly, the article examines the historical framework of the novel: the provincial “grande bourgeoisie” under the Third Republic which loses its power and falls into decline. Then comes aesthetic level: chromatic tones and architectural metaphors of necropolises and mausoleums. The imaginary of decay reaches its peak in the treatment of voluntary phenomena in characters from the upper middle class background, which echo Bergson’s philosophical analyses of the disorders of will.
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English
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