Tropisms
Quick Summary
Tropisms is a collection of sketches by Nathalie Sarraute, a key figure in the French literary movement known as the nouveau roman or "new novel". Sarraute borrowed the term "tropisms" from botany, where it describes the orientation of plants or animals in response to stimuli. In her work, Sarraute uses this concept to explore subtle, elemental impulses that drive human behavior and form the basis of emotions like envy, love, and hate. These imperceptible motions, she suggests, are at the origin of our attitudes and actions, challenging traditional literary methods of character development through biographical description.123
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