Pact with the devil
The pact with the Devil is a recurrent theme of the human reflections and on the basis of the Littérature, in particular romantic. It aims any situation where, by an unspecified magic (agreement with the Diable, discovered of a talisman,…), a character can obtain easily the Bonheur - or at least what can represent it in its eyes - against a disastrous alienation of which it does not perceive a priori the importance: typically, the Fortune against its heart.
The pact points out the price of happiness and puts the man vis-a-vis the choice between a great immediate, but transitory happiness and which presents a bitter reverse; and a happiness more prolonged but less intense.
Representative works
- 1830, Honore de Balzac, Elixir of long life
- 1831, Honore de Balzac, the Shagreen
- 1835, Honore de Balzac, Melmoth reconciled , continuation of Melmoth, the man wandering , Romance Gothic of Charles Robert Maturin
- 1838, Adelbert of chamisso, strange story of Peter Schlemihl , translation of 1838, by Hippolyte and Adelbert de Chamisso.
- 188? , Robert Louis Stevenson, Devil in the bottle
- 1891, Oscar Wilde, the Portrait of Dorian Gray
- 1943, Maurice Turner, the Hand of the devil
- 1947, John Steinbeck, the Pearl
See too
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Robert Johnson, which told to hold its talent of a mysterious meeting.