Second person narrative as autobiographical mask: Author, narrator, protagonist, and “narratee converge” in Herman Teirlinck, “The Man in the Mirror”

Abstract

This article explores the novel Zelfportret of het galgemaal (The Man in the Mirror, 1955) by the Flemish author Herman Teirlinck, who planned it as a literary self-portrait. Its interpretation as an autobiography hinges on one’s understanding of the second-person point of view that makes up substantial parts of this novel. Multifocality of the “you” appears to be a key feature characterizing this little explored narrative mode in autobiography. Departing from structuralist narratology by Genette and Lejeune, I investigate reader-driven reading modes as elaborated by Fludernik, Bonheim, and Schmitt to explore how the deferred referentiality of the “you” blurs the traditional dichotomy between factual historical reality and the narrative world. The narrator involves the reader in interpreting the “you” to address both the narratee (Teirlinck) and the protagonist (Henri) at the same time.