THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY of AMERICA the Postmodern
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THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA The Postmodern Treatment of Myth in the Writings of Michel Tournier A DISSERTATION Submitted to the Faculty of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures School of Arts and Sciences Of The Catholic University of America In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree Doctor of Philosophy © Copyright All Rights Reserved By Melissa Barchi Panek Washington, D.C. 2010 The Postmodern Treatment of Myth in the Writings of Michel Tournier Melissa Barchi Panek, Ph.D. Director: Jean-Michel Heimonet, Ph.D. Michel Tournier defines his supreme mission of a writer to be the creation of a mythology which allows for interaction with his readers, who seem to be losing their critical faculties in our contemporary, postmodern world dominated by consumption. Our contemporary society has changed due to the end of the modern era with its reigning ideologies. Collapsing after the atrocities of the Second World War, Modernity and the artistic and literary reactions referred to as modernism, have likewise been transformed. Myth continues to represent the collectivity of human existence, yet, in the short stories and the novels of Michel Tournier, myth represents the collapse of over-reaching ideologies inherent to the Modern era. The grand narratives of Modernity such as Christianity and Man’s reason have been deconstructed in the postmodern era. The mythology of Michel Tournier expresses these trends towards the dissolution of modernity and creates individual, mini narratives which emphasize the particularity of individual existence. Tournier takes established mythical models rooted in Christianity, fables and legends of Western Civilization and re-contextualizes them. Through a semiotic reworking of core binary pairs of a myth, Tournier creates a third order level of representation which modifies the mythical model. The works of le Roi des Aulnes, Gilles et Jeanne, and Vendredi are illustrious of this third order level of signification. According to Ferdinand de Saussure, Roland Barthes and Claude Lévi-Strauss, the structural make-up of myth transforms established meanings according to the dominant cultural code. Barthes’ semiological study of myth reveals the levels of representation through which myth creates meaning. Myth builds upon the denotative first-order level of language and through a connotative process, creates a second-order level. This connotative process does not end on this second-order, for in the writings of Tournier, this semiological process is continued to a third-order which re-contextualizes the myth again. Tournier adapts myth to the unique traits of the postmodern era including deconstruction and playfulness by allowing the reader to provide the context of the story. As such we, the reader, take the place as author of our own individual mythology. This dissertation by Melissa Barchi Panek fulfills the dissertation requirement for the doctoral degree in Philosophy approved by Dr. Jean-Michel Heimonet, as Director, and by Dr. Peter Shoemaker, and Dr. Nadia Harris as Readers. _______________________________________ Dr. Jean-Michel Heimonet, Director _______________________________________ Dr. Peter Shomaker, Reader ________________________________________ Dr. Nadia Harris, Reader ii For my father, all the TP’s in my life and Madeleine. iii Table of Contents INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 1: Into the Shadows: The Third Order of Myth 9 Myth and Man 9 The Universal Nature of Myth 11 Myth as Fable 13 Myth: The Voice of the Collective Unconscious 15 The Third-Order of Representation: Plato 17 The Three Levels and Myth 20 Myth is Language 22 The Third Order of Abel Tiffauges in le Roi des Aulnes 24 Abel Tiffauges the Sinister Supreme Being 31 The Paradoxal Personal Myth 35 The Monster in Tiffauges is the Collective Unconscious 39 The Genesis of a Monster 40 The Mythical History of Tiffauges 42 Inversion: Metonymical Continuation 44 The Mythical History of Tiffauges: Gilles de Rais 50 Gilles et Jeanne 52 Tupik: Structural Study 62 Tournier’s Mythomorphic Narratives 73 CHAPTER 2: The Transgressive Self of the Shadows 78 The Postmodern Crusoe 82 The Three Orders of Robinson Crusoe 86 Decentered Structured: From Structuralism to Poststructuralism 89 The Loss of Historicity 100 Intertextualization of Robinson: Cannibalization of the Modern 101 The Disposition of the Subject 106 The Banished ‘I’: the log-book 114 Robinson the Postmodern Existentialist 121 The Dark Skinned Other 126 Vendredi: the Eruption of ‘le Sacré’ 130 Vendredi: Simulacra of the Other 136 Baudrillard and Robinson Crusoe 147 Symbolic Disorder: Third Order Simulation 150 iv CHAPTER 3: The Demise of the Sacred 161 Myth and Christianity 167 The Myth of Jesus Christ 172 Postmodern Christian Theology: Christ deconstructed? 177 The Genesis of Atheology: “God is Dead” 178 Postmodern Hermeneutics: the Immanence of Incarnation 183 Tournier’s Horizon: Christian? 186 The Perversion of the Image 193 The Image in the Postmodern Era 205 The Devouring Image: les Suaires de Véronique 210 In the Margins of the Sacred Experience 222 Bataille’s Sacrality: Passing into the Margins 225 Tournier’s Atheology: Hyper-Christianity 234 Le Roi des Aulnes: The Heterogeneous Symbolic 238 CHAPTER 4: The Power of Symbolism: The Salvation of the Self 240 Myth and Symbol 241 The Jew as Other: Postmodern Historicity 247 Symbolism in the Postmodern Era 251 The Symbol of the Star of David 256 Cold: “Ecrits Sinistres” 265 Fire: “Les Pigeons du Rhin” 271 Water: “Hyperborean” 275 Moist: “The Ogre of Rominten” 278 Hot: “The Ogre of Kaltenborn” 281 Dry: “Astrophore” 285 CONCLUSION 291 BIBLIOGRAPHY 295 v Preface This dissertation is the product of a lifelong reflection on the power of literature to not only represent, but to affect the reality that surrounds us. I would like to thank Dr. Jean- Michel Heimonet whose keen intellect and profound understanding of literature and philosophy compelled me to finish this study. I would also like to extend gratitude to Dr. Nadia Harris who inspired my creativity and encouraged me to continue writing. vi INTRODUCTION To say that Michel Tournier is a writer for whom myth plays an integral role has been duly noted by many of the foremost critics of Tournier including Arlette Bouloumié, David Platten, David Gascoigne and William Cloonan. Arlette Bouloumié emphasizes the revelatory characteristic of myth, that is to say myth’s capacity to voice the societal trends in which it functions, as she states: “L’oeuvre de Michel Tournier tire son originalité et sa profondeur de l’actualisation de grands mythes oubliés. La fonction du mythe, cette “histoire fondamentale”, (VP, 188), écrit-il, est d’éclairer les secrètes et confuses aspirations de l’homme.”1 Her extensive collection of works offers a profound study of myth in the works of Tournier. Yet this perspective needs to be widened in order to accommodate and account for the radical social changes that have transformed our society into one which not only follows modernity, but breaks from it, leading us into the postmodern. In the works of Michel Tournier, myth is re-structured and adapted to our postmodern world. The study that follows will examine the influence exerted by post modernity on the mythical components of his novels and short stories. In the most general sense, to speak of the postmodern evokes the contemporary era overrun with technological advancements and simulation. Our contemporary society is dominated by consumption. The tremendous influence exerted on life by television and the internet collectively contributes to a critical dormancy of the individual. That is to say, in the postmodern era, man’s critical faculties are repressed, favored for a more complacent attitude of consuming rather than producing. Here enters Tournier who uses 1 Arlette Bouloumié. Michel Tournier: Le Roman Mythologique (Paris: J. Corti, 1988), 5. 1 2 myth as a medium to not only represent this existence, but to stimulate our psyche through the literary process. Indeed, Tournier realizes the highest aspirations of the literary process: the representation of a reality. As such, through the examination of the mythical restructuring performed by Tournier, one may understand his works to constitute a discourse. That is to say that his works create a unique depiction of reality. After all, myth and discourse are indissociable as confirmed by Barthes who states: “Puisque le mythe est une parole, tout peut être mythe, qui est justiciable d’un discours.”2 It is through this perspective which emphasizes the narrative traits of this discourse, that we may ascertain the differences between the postmodern and the modern. Accordingly, we may then confer upon a text the characterization of modern or postmodern. The distinction between the modern and the postmodern is highly contested amongst many social and literary critics today. It is possible to emphasize the postmodern traits of Tournier’s transformation of myth due to his tendency to deconstruct and then semantically reconstruct the key components of the mythical model. Indeed, Tournier’s consistent unraveling and pursuant reconstruction of myth may be qualified as postmodern due to the fact that he achieves a playful undermining of established modern ideological predecessors. As a result of these mythological alterations, we, the reader, emerge from the literary process profoundly altered. We no longer view reality or society in the same way. Tournier’s works inspire and call to us to be creatively engaged with ourselves and 2 Roland Barthes, Mythologies (Paris: Editions de Seuil, 1957),181. 3 with the changing world around us. Instead of consuming the image of the individual as represented through the various technological mediums of our era, we instead turn inward and then project our own uniquely individual conception of reality. Therefore, throughout the course of this study I will emphasize the postmodern characteristics of Tournier’s treatment of myth, the playful and deconstructionist propensities of his texts. I do not intend to blankly brand his narrative structural re- workings as postmodern, implying that Tournier’s works correspond to a distinct set of criteria which allow for them to be labeled as postmodern.