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How Not to Speak of Incest: Atala and the Secrets of Speech

The problem of incest in Atala (1801), framed by the rhetorical figure of preterition, reflects a more general enigma explored by Chateaubriand's writing: how to speak of the unspeakable, of that which must necessarily be kept silent; or conversely, how to avoid speaking of that about which one cannot help but speak? When analyzed in the light of Derrida's notions of the "gift of death," originary mourning, secrets and responsibility, the structure of symbolic incest between Atala and Chactas further reveals the unsettling paradoxes of the pure and the impure that define Atala's dilemma in the struggle to respect her vow of chastity. Ultimately, Chateaubriand's text reflects on these paradoxes in the form of an irremediable "linguistic taint," a "plague on speaking" that manifests itself through cryptic language and oblique signification symptomatic of melancholy. (LB)