Table Of ContentETHICAL (IN)DIFFERENCE IN SELF AND TEXT
IN GRACQ, BEN JELLOUN AND GERMAIN
By
JEANNINE ARIAS
A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT
OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
1998
Copyright 1998
by
Jeannine Arias
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank my mentor. Professor Carol J.
Murphy, for her continuous invaluable guidance and
encouragement. I would also like to extend my gratitude to
Professors Bernadette A. Cailler, William C. Calin and
Ofelia Schutte for their careful readings, extremely helpful
comments and ongoing support. Finally, I would like to
acknowledge the loving support of my parents, Jorge and
Ines, and of my best friend, Paul.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii
ABSTRACT
CHAPTETRhe1Re(vINo)luDtIiFoFnEaRrENyCETexItN SInELFDiAfNfDereTnEcXeT 91
The Self In and Respectful of Difference 14
Writing and Reading the Ambiguous Text: A Means to the
Self In Difference 25
Limited Narcissism and The Ethical Self 38
Melancholia, Aesthetic Play and the Ethical Self/Text
47
CHAPTER 2 THE FORTIFIED SELF AND TEXT IN DIFFERENCE IN
JULIEN GRACQ'S UN BALCON EN FORET 65
Psychic Ambivalence as Self-Fortification 69
Limited Narcissism: Towards A Respect For the Other
B6
MelancOhtohleric (In)Difference: A Passive Relation to the93
PThleayiWrnigteTrh,rouRegahde(rA,TraanvderTse)xtMeIlnanDcihfofleircencPeain....!..* ’1l1067
CHAPTER 3 PSYCHIC, SEXUAL, AND CULTURAL DIFFERENCE IN TAHAR
BEN JELLOUN'S LA NUIT SAGREE 130
Melancholia or the Potentially Ethical Entombment of
Alterity
Love as a Means to Limited Narcissism 145
Reading and Listening to the Other 163
NTaerxtruaatlingOthtehreneOstsheras Cultural Otherness ! ! ! 118916
CHAPTER 4 FACING THE OTHER IN SYLVIE GERMAIN'S OPERA MUET
203
Narcissistic (In)Difference or I'Etre en Pierre 205
MelancNhaorlciicssu(sIn)Difference or the Hidden Face of . 215
Discovering The Other 223
Aesthetic Activity: An Ambiguous Process of
Self-Formation 241
The Text As An Opening To The Other 263
CONCLUSION 268
LIST OF REFERENCES 278
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 285
V
Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate School
of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
ETHICAL (IN)DIFFERENCE IN SELF AND TEXT
IN GRACQ, BEN JELLOUN AND GERMAIN
By
Jeannine Arias
December, 1998
Chairperson: Professor Carol J. Murphy
Major Department: Romance Languages and Literatures
My study examines why Julien Gracq's Un Balcon en foret
(1958), Tahar Ben Jelloun's La Nuit sacree (1987) and Sylvie
Germain Opera muet (1989), three disparate novels in French,
display similarly ambiguous language, imagery and plots in
their depictions of depressed, indifferent protagonists.
Indeed, such language and themes could easily be construed
as meaningless textual play, typical, as some allege, of
much (post)modern literature. However, my dissertation
argues that, in these three novels, textual indeterminacy
and the focus on the melancholic, ambivalent self reveal, in
fact, the practice and thematization of an ethical opening
to the other in its variant forms.
VI
All three novels exemplify texts in difference where
textual ambiguities highlight both meaning and its negation
or disruption which, in turn, reflect the analogous struggle
in the speaking, writing and/or reading subject. To the
extent that these indeterminate literary texts underscore
not only narcissistic identity but the unconscious other as
well, and, in so doing, acknowledge the split self, rather
than suppress it, ethics, as Julia Kristeva defines it,
inheres in these works.
Moreover, the texts offer meditations on the self in
difference in their portrayals of characters who not only
(re)discover their divided psyche but also learn to respect
the human other's alterity. Each narrative fiction presents
the protagonist's path to ethical becoming, that is, to
appreciating the internal and external ineffable other, as a
complex process, ranging from violent, narcissistic
rejection to joyful acceptance by way of play or aesthetic
activity, with interim moments of melancholia.
Analyizing the ambivalent self and the ambiguous,
poetic text in three disparate novels while using varied
theoretical approaches, including those of Julia Kristeva,
Helene Cixous and Emmanuel Levinas, my project highlights
the fruitful consideration of difference at all levels.
Indeed, the choice of novels for this dissertation, written
Vll
during different historical moments, by male and female as
well as French and other Francophone authors, underscores
the study of difference within and between these works and,
subsequently, questions the discipline's inclination to
compartmentalize the study of literature in French.
. .
CHAPTER 1
(IN)DIFFERENCE IN SELF AND TEXT
The poststructuralist critique of metaphysics/
identity, meaning, and truth has undergone incessant, heavy
criticism for its lack of social and ethical value. Indeed,
poststructuralist theory, as well as postmodern art which
instantiates such theory,^ take as their focus indecision,
deferral, and ambiguity in notions of self and text which
critics denounce as nihilistic and anarchical. For many,
the constant play of self-reflective language in
poststructuralist thought precludes the representation of
^In An Introductory Guide To Post-Structuralism and
Postmodernism, Madan Sarup defines poststructuralism as the
theoretical approach that continues many of the critiques
already present in structuralism, such as the critiques of
the subject, of historicism and of philosophy, but that
"reject[s] the assumptions implicit in the Saussurian model
of linguistics on which structuralism was based" (130)
"Postmodernism," Sarup goes on to say, "is in part a
description of a new type of society [i.e., the post-
industrialist society since the Second World War] but also,
in part, a new term for post-structuralism in the
arts (133) Sarup further notes how these two terms tend
to conflate. "In my opinion post-structuralists like
Foucault, Derrida and Lyotard are postmodernists. There are
so many similarities between post-structuralist theories and
postmodern practices that it is difficult to make a clear
distinction between them" (144).
1
. . ,
2
ethical and social concerns,^ Consequently, this type of
theory and art, the detractors allege, occupies a position
of indifference that "leads to moral and political nihilism"
(Sarup 186). Arthur Kroker's The Postmodern Scene:
Excremental Culture and Hyper-Aesthetics depicts
postmodernist theory and culture as signaling the end of an
ethical society or, as he puts it, as "a melancholy descent
into the violence of the death of the social" (9) Kroker
repeatedly proclaims that postmodernism's ethic-less
practice displays a "loss of solidarity" (13), thereby
inflicting a postmodern "deep sense of melancholia" (13)
But how did poststructuralists and/or postmodernists
come to be associated with this so-called "melancholic"
theoretic and aesthetic stance, seemingly bereft of all
social and ethical considerations? Geoffrey Galt Harpham
offers a provocative explanation in his essay "Ethics" which
traces the dynamics between ethics, theory, and literature
starting with the emergence of the "Theoretical Era" circa
1968 and continuing up to the present. Harpham contends
that ethics, for the majority of poststructuralist
^In The Rhetoric of Failure, Ewa Ziarek discusses the
common misinterpretation of contemporary art's play with
language. She states,
the effects of the rhetorical subversion of meaning can
be misread as the infinite play of self-reflective
language, separated from the tasks of representation
and social obligations" (4)
