Aspects de la quete de l'identite dans l'oeuvre de bernard malamud
Institution:
Toulouse 2Disciplines:
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Abstract EN:
This thesis seeks to prove the theme unifying the works of bernard malamud, an american jewish writer, is the quest of identity. Considered as the only way for man to get free from his alienated condition, which his relationship with society, history and self condemns him to. Discarding the hypothesis of despair as well as that of escapism, the writer chooses to replace the notion of reality by that of human experience and to invent a style that bears witness to its various metamorphoses and underlines its paradoxical nature. Thanks to the use of tragi-comedy and the setting-up of mock-heroic situations, he makes it possible for some form of symbiotic exchange between reality and surreality to exist. The interpenetration of these two modes highly rests on rich symbolic and metaphoric clusters. The metaphor is conceived of as the necessary link between real-life occurrences and the mythic experience which is brought forth as the aptest device in the quest of identity. First the writer undertakes to demythologize the traditional components of american selfconsciousness. Then he contrives a counter-myth which is meant to facilitate a dynamic re-discovery of what jewishness is in a universal ethical perspective. While he reshapes some elements borrowed from yiddish literature, he dramatizes the jew as doppelganger to the american, thus testifying that americans can have a way out and contemplate reconciliation, which implies a radical change in attitudes and requires that man should renounce his pretensions to skill as an artist, his self-complacency as a father and his desire to overthrow god. Humility is the overriding moral principle that should guide man; at least this is the lesson one can draw from the works of a man totally dedicated to humanism.
Abstract FR:
Le propos de cette these est de demontrer que le theme unificateur de l'oeuvre de bernard malamud, ecrivain juif americain, estla quete de l'identite, seule demarche apte a sortir l'homme de l'etat d'alienation auquel le voue son rapport a la societe, a l'histoire et a soi. Ecartant l'hypothese du desespoir et celle de la fuite, l'auteur choisit de substituer a la notion de reel celle du vecu et de faire en sorte que son style en reflete les metamorphoses et en souligne les paradoxes. Le mode tragi-comique ainsi que le recours a l'incongru permettent a bernard malamud de prendre une distance qui autorise des echanges symbiotiques entre reel et surreel. L'interpenetration des deux modes s'effectue par le biais d'une ecriture symbolique et metaphorique. En effet la metaphore est concue comme le lien indispensable entre le vecu et l'experience mythique, instrument privilegie au service de la quete de l'identite. Dans un premier temps l'auteur entreprend de demythifier les voies traditionnelles de l'imaginaire americain afin de mettre en valeur l'effet alienant des mythes de reference. Puis, dans le but d'eviter l'ecueil de la marginalisation, il s'emploie a creer un contre-mythe fonde sur les ressources du surreel et destine a favoriser la re-decouverte de la notion de judeite dans le cadre d'une ethique universelle. Tout en refaconnant les elements empruntes a la tradition yiddish, il offre a l'americain aliene, en la personne du juif, un double porteur d'espoir et de reconciliation. Cette reconciliation implique une revision radicale des comportements et exige de l'homme qu'il renonce a ses pretentions d'artiste, a ses prerogatives de pere et a son desir de subversion. L'oeuvre de cet auteur profondement attache aux valeurs humanistes est en fait une lecon d'humilite.