... of surrealism, through the pages of Nadja, is the first step in analyzing this technique. Discussing this maelstrom of ideas, the inevitable focus is on the fulcrum around which the book turns, the psychotic figure of Nadja, Breton's woman and symbol, the embodiment of his 'surrealist aspiration'. Breton's 'account of what I have been permitted to experience in this domain'3 is played out against the tapestry of the Grand Boulevards, cafes and theatres of urban Paris. Analysis of this 'stage set', reveals, paradoxically in the light of his surrealist aims, the highly descriptive (textual and visual) construction of Breton's 'domain'. Drawing these strands together the conclusion considers whether Nadja is 'the quintessential Surrealist romance' or more menacingly, a perverse and egotistical exploitation of a vulnerable young woman. Nadja is not the 'false novel' Breton advocates in his first Surrealist Manifesto (1924). His unconscious, unbidden, process of automatic writing to produce words ...

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