Narrative functions of the automobile in the French novel from the turn of the twentieth century to the inter-war period.

This article examines the narrative functions of the automobile in six French novels published between 1902 and 1925, situating the car as a literary object that reshapes fictional worlds amid industrialized time and space. It highlights how the automobile contributes to characterisation, plot development, and thematic motifs such as competition and comparison with other transport modes, revealing new experiences of mobility and social interaction. The car is shown to fragment and recompose landscapes, relationships, and narrative structures, reflecting broader cultural tensions between continuity and fragmentation during the early twentieth century and the aftermath of World War I. Through this lens, the automobile serves as a narrative device that enables authors to explore transformations in space, identity, and modernity within the French novel.