| This dissertation explores the theme of seduction and the power of storytelling in nineteenth-century French short fiction, focusing on its manifestations in works by Honore de Balzac ("Sarrasine" [1830] and "Les Secrets de la princesse de Cadignan" [1839]), George Sand ("La Marquise" [1832], "Metella" [1833], and Isidora [1845]), and Gerard de Nerval (Sylvie [1853]). These works, written at a moment of increasing literacy and intense debate about the dangers of reading, illuminate questions about the power of art and the nature of imagination. Each work depicts characters reacting to storytelling and sometimes to other forms of art: for naive characters, a powerful imagination makes them more susceptible to the destructive power of seduction. For characters better versed in the ways of the world, seduction is a source of playfulness and pleasure.;Drawing on narratology and cognitive psychology, I examine how seduction relies on theory of mind---our capacity to see other people as motivated by thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and intentions. The mechanisms of seduction displayed in this corpus illustrate the richness and complexity of singular experiences. At the same time, they reveal patterns: the most successful seducers are the most subtle mind-readers, able to tailor their seductions to their intended target, and the easiest targets are those who are most prone to misread others.;In their depictions of characters reacting to storytelling or to works of art, these texts offer positive and negative models of reading. Characters who become so absorbed that they confuse fiction and reality often suffer. Others learn how to maintain a balance between enjoying the imagined world of the text and remaining grounded in reality. All of these texts offer insight into broad questions of cognition and how and why we read. Studying seduction as the subject of these texts and as a metaphor for the relationship between text and reader furnishes an opportunity to discuss the ways in which we conceive---historically and currently---of the power of fiction. |
