Armance

"Armance"(1827) is the first novel written and published by the French writer Stendhal. The work describes the complicated relationship between two lovers (Armance and Octave): a series of misunderstandings keeps them separate. For a series of clues, it suggests that Octave is impotent due to a rather serious accident . Always restless, dark and full of inner conflicts, the boy of high society in Paris was doubtful and very thoughtful about his true vocation. Do something concrete, like a military career or take refuge in the priesthood? This question will bring Octave to a kind of inability to love others. So, broken, he decides to escape from his beloved, embarking on a ship bound for Greece. Several critics have seen in "Armance" a fundamental metaphor: the unstable, anxious and decadent character of Octave would perfectly describe the decadence and political instability of that historical period.