I visited Paris this summer, and the book reminded me of it so here is a picture!
The first thing that came to mind as I read the summary on the back of the book was “Oh, Nadja is a Manic Pixie Dream Girl,” and I stand by that. She is only there to forward the male protagonist’s understanding of himself/the world (which is discussed in the lecture), she is a quirky artist, she has weird makeup, she is poor, she has an unreal way of seeing the world, and she is quite literally MANIC and suffering from mental illness. I enjoyed the writing, some passages were so beautiful, and I was cheering along at the harsh critiques of psychiatric care around p. 139, however, after getting to the end of the novel and reading about the real-life woman that the story is based on, I was angry. This glorification of female mental illness is a popular trope in all genres and is one of my least favourites. Breton cheats on his wife with a struggling woman whom he then gets close to and then abandons. In the beginning, he is obsessed with her, but his obsession is based on her need for him, this is enforced by passages about how he is the sun and how he is her god, not to mention the passages where he is brought to tears imagining her existence separate of him and laments on how the thought of it pains him. Although he claims to love her, the novel ends with him leaving her in a mental asylum (because he’s scared of psychiatrists? coward…,) and proclaiming his love to a new woman (still not his wife lol). He describes this new woman as his true and real love and says Nadja was just a moment in time. I also read about the real woman who the book is based on. I was angry to find out those are her real drawings that she was not given credit for them, and that she died in a sanitarium in 1941, just as he predicted he would. This book SHOULD be a heartbreaking confession, but not once does he say sorry or express deep regret. It is framed as an experience in HIS life as if SHE isn’t even a real person (surrealist or narcissist?). I think the quote that he remembers Nadja telling him sums up the meaning of this book well: “With the end of my breath which is the beginning of yours,” Breton frames Nadja as a stepping stone in discovering himself. He uses her, even in the writing of this book he is personally profiting off of her suffering. It is an entertaining and thought-provoking read, but I don’t feel it is worth the exploitation of a woman whose traumatic story will now only ever be seen through the eyes of a guy who slept with her.
My question is: is the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope ever redeemable or used well? What’s an example.