Abstract

This article analyses the presence of jeunes filles in literature, in particular in the work of Marcel Proust. The signs through which jeune fille characters are constructed will be identified and collected, signs that, according to Deleuze, played a fundamental role in the constitution of the affects for the author of À la recherche du temps perdu. Through considering these signs a model will begin to be built of the “jeune fille”, not in order to uncover a final answer or provide a definition, but so as to conceptualize the existence of these elusive and mutable characters. This will include providing evidence of the repetition of difference inscribed in Proustian aesthetics.