Abstract The overall purpose of this paper is to reconsider the narrative usage and function of a literary phenomenon like ‘opposition/tension/contradiction.’ Throughout my analysis of Alain-Robbe Grillet’s La jalousie, Chloé Delaume’s J’habite dans la television and Jean Genet’s Le Balcon I was focused on investigating the use of this phenomenon as a means of creating a narrative space occupied simultaneously by both a concept and its counterpart. In these novels the encounter of both a concept and its counterpart within the same narrative space results in a new narrative that neither affirms nor negates rather, art of this form affirms while negating; it generates certain forms of dissensus. I am using the term of dissensus not in Rancière’s tradition where it stands to represents a gap in the sensible, as that event which makes visible that which had no reason to be seen, but rather as a particular quality of a text consisting in creating meaning by continually generating and feeding contradictions, without solving them. Dissensus under the form of contradiction/tension/opposition represents a type of writing manifesting an ability to use a level of language where by generating and describing the object, it undoes what it describes. This particular approach is one that has been ignored so far by the critics, and my hope is that by bringing it into light from the perspective of this paper, I will open up a dialogue that will enrich the lexicon surrounding these texts. I have chosen these particular texts on one hand because of their different yet similar use of the linguistic experience of opposition/tension/contradiction, but also because of their intersections with other forms of artistic expression, namely cinema, TV and theatre. When looking into a question like the reconfiguration of the linguistic experience as part of the modernist experience, it is useful to look at literature at the intersection with other arts since, as Sara Danius’ study on modernism proves, literary productions of modernity are reactions to the new means of mechanical reproduction generating new ways of perceiving. The modern literary experience is directly linked to the technical development taking place during the early decades of the twentieth century, an event resulting in the development of new modes of sensory perception. Literary modernism witnesses a split between categories like seeing and knowing due to the fact that the newly discovered technological devices challenge the status quo of human senses as the locus of truth and knowledge. The chapter dedicated to Alain Robbe Grillet’s text looks at the notion of opposition as a performative quality of the narrative. I have used the term ‘performative’ in J. L. Austin’s tradition, as that condition of an utterance of performing an action through its assertion only, as opposed to simply describing or reporting that act. I was therefore looking at the concept of ‘opposition/contradiction/tension’ as a speech act, from the standpoint of its capacity of becoming transformational in relation with the narrative. My analysis showed that Robbe-Grillet’s entire novel is comprised of narrative sequences subordinate to the notion of opposition. The novel is organized as a retelling ad nauseam of a few main episodes, and each time an episode is retold, a few different elements are added to the description—a fact that allows a variety of different combinations to emerge between the main storylines. However, the passage from one episode to another, from one narrative sequence to another, is possible only as a consequence of some sort of contradiction/opposition in relation to the sequence preceding. ‘Opposing’ in this context acquires the qualitative function of acting out a change, performing a new becoming, transforming both the narrative and its characters. With Chloé Delaume, we enter a narrative space of representation wherein the technique of opposition/contradiction/tension represents the very same condition of Existing/Writing inherent within Chloé Delaume’s process of continually creating her own identity through the means of literary productions. For her, writing and living are synonymous, and her continual existence and becoming are possible only in view of her constant change via different forms of incongruity and inconsistency. Embarking on a 22-month-long project of exposing herself to continual TV entertainment in order to document the changes taking place within the self as a consequence of this exposure, and therefore uncovering the mechanisms behind media manipulation, Chloé enters a highly controversial space of representation and identity formation. Her entire rendering of this experiment, initiated from a condition of presupposed knowledge, will be continually challenged and contradicted—to a point where not only do the hypothesis and therefore the very conditions of existence of the novel change, but the author herself moves from a position of authorial knowledge meant to be shared with the Other (the reader), to identifying herself with the reader and its knowledge and then to disappearing as identity in a move identifiable with a complete depersonalization via the medium of TV. However, even this move of depersonalization becomes then opposed and resisted through the form of the present novel, as the novel itself becomes the means of Chloé’s salvation from dissolution. Chloé Delaume’s narrative is therefore entirely subdued and conditioned to different forms of opposition meant to question and problematize the very meaning of existence, of language, and subsequently of literature. The chapter dedicated to Jean Genet brings into focus the same notions of existence (reality) and literature (imagination), but in this case, their encounter under the sphere of opposition creates a new space of literary production and performance where both reality and imagination (art) become two oppositional—yet conjoined—facets of a new becoming, articulated at the very axis of the two. This space of potential becoming is set up by the constant renegotiation of the relationship between reality and imagination. Becoming from this perspective is realized always within an oppositional, dual form of representation. Genet’s characters are seen in perpetual movement, always becoming another via a linguistic experience in which the subject creates itself in an alternative space of being articulated as an opposition to a nonbeing. The literary text, and by extension, the scene on which is performed (i.e. the play), become a space of identity formation, a locus continually generating a form of existence/becoming that lies in between reality and imagination; it is a form of existence that assumes one facet while negating the other, a being that cannot be actualized in absentia of its negation. Through employing opposition in this way, Genet is renegotiating the space of theatrical performance at its intersection with life. Rather than using reality as a muse, an inspiration for his literary production, he creates a dialogue of the two, a dialogue of the opposites and each part of the duality, rather than being validated through the negation of its opposite, is re-signified as a reaction of this encounter. The impetus generating this new potential is the threat of life, of reality devoid of imagination as a finite, limitative experience of the individual. The role of art seen from this perspective is to create a space of existence in between reality and imagination, seen as two forms of experience that are dependent, relying upon each other, while paradoxically excluding/negating each other’s veracity. Therefore, these texts, through the use of opposition/contradiction/tension, expose us to a form of existence centered around a notion of knowledge and truth that are constantly moving, constantly evolving as a consequence of our interactions both with the outside world and also with our own selves. Territorialization/deterritorialization/reterritorialization of the self within the self: in a simplified manner, this is the consequence of opposition/contradiction/tension underlying the narrative development of the texts analyzed in the present research.

Creator

• Costea, Mihaela-Adina

DOI

• https://doi.org/10.21985/n2-cpq2-md91

Subject

• French literature

Language

• en

Alternate Identifier

• etdadmin_upload_639270
• http://dissertations.umi.com/northwestern:14518

Date created

• 2019-01-01

Resource type

• Dissertation

Rights statement

• In Copyright