Starting from a close reading of Marguerite Duras’ Le Ravissement de Lol V. Stein which focuses on the particular use of the French pronoun elle (“she” in English), the aim of this text is to reflect on how literature manages to represent – or not – the feminine. Actually, what is quite striking, from Medieval to Contemporary literature, is the recurrence of a female character choosing to retire from “the world”, either in a religious retreat, or in a sort of self-effacement which sometimes can be very close to madness. These feminine figures escaping the world question directly the place of the feminine: where is that place? Does such a place exist? Can the feminine be held in a place and therefore confined/defined? Or does it belong to “the place of the other”?