Access Type
Open Access Embargo
Date of Award
January 2023
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Department
Classical and Modern Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
First Advisor
Alina A. Cherry
Abstract
This dissertation studies the theme of self-writing in exile literature. The corpus consists of The Lover (1984), Marguerite Duras, The Enigma of Return (2009), Dany Laferrière and Ru (2009), by Kim Thúy. Referring to these three works, we treat the experience of exile through the prism of self-writing. In this work we discussed the following questions: What are the particularities of self-writing? What is the point of writing about one’s self? Why does an author choose to write about himself? What relationship does he maintain with the country of origin, and for some, with the family that stayed there? Can we say that the goal is above all a search that leads to self- discovery? How does exile influence self-writing? In the case of the three mentioned authors, is it autobiographical or autofictional writing? What would be the differences between these two subgenres? What conclusions can be drawn about the relationship between exile writing and self-writing by comparing these three writers so different in their approaches? In order to analyze the particularities of the writing one’s self from a narrative point of view, we addressed these texts through two theories: Autobiography according to Philippe Lejeune who has written Le pact autobiographique (1976) and autofiction, a neologism invented by Serge Doubrouvsky who invented this term in his book Fils (1977) written as an answer to Lejeune's book, Le pacte autobiographique. We concluded that in each one of these three texts, the narrator goes in search of his past, by reporting facts and memories but also through self-psychoanalyzing by positioning himself a step back from his own’s. Thus, the writing of one’s self in the books of exile, is carried out using memories of a past that the protagonist constantly relives, proving that childhood, the country of origin is always an essential part of life. Talking about them becomes a matter of cohabiting with the self of the past and that of the present, making the country of childhood and that of adult life one place or at least find a compromise in the unconscious in order to be able to free oneself from this space of in between: two countries, two cultures, even two lives.
Recommended Citation
Saker, Maissa, "L’écriture De Soi Dans La Littérature D’exil" (2023). Wayne State University Dissertations. 3784.
https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/oa_dissertations/3784