ters intensely give the reader a familiarity with each of the characters so that he or she may grasp more easily the content of each of the character’s qualities. The voice of the author is as distinctive and distinguished as was the woman who wrote the novel. Although it is not one of Colette’s most popular or best-known works, it deserves a wide and attentive audience (Strand 113).Because the novel was translated, the genuine diction and sentence structure may have been somewhat confused (Strand 112). Although Colette’s diction and sentence structure was not, her style was truly authentic. Her style has been praised as “precise, evocative and” of course “sensual” (Kingcaid 118). The novel is marked by “sensitive descriptions of nature, sexual frankness, and a flair of the theater” (Kingcaid 118). The clich, “theatre was meant to be viewed, not read” is overridden by the way Colette uses her personal knowledge of and experience in the theatre to enhance the plot of the novel. By combining elements of theatrical writing, narrative voice, and natural story-writing talent, Colette is refulgent in her unmatched style, developed by no other author.In that the narrator is the major protagonist, she is unmistakably reliable. With a combined first and third point of view, there is a tremendous effect on the structure of the novel. The intruding narrative devices of letters and internal narratives provide for an authentic literary technique that sets the novel apart from average turn-of-the-century romance novels. The presentation of personality in each of the characters is divine in that each of them possesses strong but varied qualities. Tough, brave, sensitive, and straightforward, Renee is the center of the novel, and all other characters help to reveal her persona to the reader. In that the plot of the novel is one that many readers can become familiar with, the ...
