Prison vécue, prisons imaginées au 19e siècle
Institution:
Université Stendhal (Grenoble)Disciplines:
Directors:
Abstract EN:
Penitentiary confinement is unanimously considered as inefficient and dangerous. To try to understand the permanency and universality of prison under numerous aspects, in spite of this damning statement, we intended -through various memoirs and witnesses'reports- to study how man behaves vhen he must face this new unrelenting world that prison is for him and what part is played by "the imagi- nary" in this behaviour : this is prison as experienced. Then we analysed imaginary works including prisons or prisoners, so as to point out the way the author visualizes incarceration, and what the mythical elements of his representations are, in the general environment of a given period : prisons as imagined in the 19the century. This study has brought out the existence of active mythical representa- tions which more or less built up a latent myth : the initiatory myth which under- lays the dream that the guilty one will be regenerated by being kept out of the way, then, at the end of his punishment, that he will be re-born as a new purified man able to take back his place in the community of men eager to welcome him. Unfortunately, the institution developed by legislators who were led by the power of the myth has only generated on "abortive myth" and prisons are kept on their evil consequences.
Abstract FR:
La detention penitentiaire est unanimement consideree comme inefficace et dangereuse. Pour essayer de comprendre la permanence et l'universalite de la prison sous de multiples visages, en depit de ce constat accablant, nous nous somme propose d'etudier, a partir de memoires et temoignages divers, comment l'homme se comporte lorsqu'il doit affronter ce monde nouveau et redoutable qu'est pour lui la prison et quelle est la part de l'imaginaire dans ce comportement : prison vecue. Nous avons ensuite analyse des oeuvres d'imagination faisant intervenir prisons ou prisonniers afin de mettre en evidence la maniere dont l'auteur se represente l'incarceration et quels sont les elements mythiques de ses figurations dans le contexte d'une epoque donnee : prisons imaginees au 19e siecle. Cette etude a mis au jour l'existence de representations mythiques actives, plus ou moins structurees en un mythe latent : le mythe initiatique qui sous-tend le reve d'obtenir par la mise a l'ecart la regeneration du coupable, puis sa re-naissance, a l'issue de la peine, sous la forme d'un homme nouveau, purifie, apte a reprendre sa place dans la communaute des hommes desireuse de l'accueillir. Helas ! l'institution mise en place par des legislateurs conduits par le dynamisme du mythe n'a enfante qu'un "mythe avorte" et la prison continue avec ses effets pervers.