"Nothing but a spectator": Image of self, corporality and feeling of existence in "Le Horla"

This paper offers a reading of Maupassant's Le Horla by focusing on the questions of human body and bodily existence. After pointing to several aspects of the narrator's narcissism at the beginning of the novella, the text will follow the dissolution of that narcissistic position. If to begin with the narrator, despising the body, is detached from any bodily dimension and is seemingly a pure mind and gaze, with the help of his double, the Horla, he gradually discovers bodily existence. This breaking up from the fascination of the image constitutes an advance towards experiencing himself. The full passage is therefore from the narcissism of the image, of the exterior, from empty representation, to a true feeling of oneself, of one's existence, through one's vital bodily essence: from the emptiness of the image and the privileging of sight to the fullness of dynamic experience. Through the transparent presence of the other the narrator finds himself.