Corine Stofle
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“Comique et Laid”: Bitter Laughter and Dystopia in Francophone Caribbean and Urban Literatures By Corine O.L. Stofle A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in French in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Karl A. Britto, Chair Professor Thoraya Tlatli Professor Damon Young Summer 2020 Abstract “Comique et Laid”: Bitter Laughter and Dystopia in Francophone Caribbean and Urban Literatures by Corine Stofle Doctor of Philosophy in French University of California, Berkeley Professor Karl Britto, Chair In spite of the flashy, highly consumable traits that have earned it considerable success in the last two decades, the work of literary dystopias is complex, engaging nothing less than the past, the present and the future. It is easy to forget that beyond the stunning special effects of its cinematographic productions, or the suspenseful, page-turning poetics of its literary expressions—in short, beyond its undeniable entertainment value—the dystopian genre, in its most recent iteration, aims above all to shake the world out of the dangerous complacency of late-stage capitalism. There exists a tension between the genre’s extravagant aesthetics and the latent threats it wishes to signal. Onscreen or on the page, protagonists vie for their physical lives in ostentatiously dangerous situations. These are metaphors for other, often invisible yet very real threats, including social death and cultural death are such threats. My dissertation explores specifically how authors of francophone expression seek to represent the experience of minoritized subjects by utilizing dystopian tropes that render these invisible threats visible. I take as a point of departure that the République universelle française continues to be animated by a utopian ethos inherited from a perennial humanist tradition. Still in search of an essential, universal understanding of both Frenchness and humanity, it struggles to relate to those among its citizens whose ontological particularities resist its homogenizing impulses. In its new postcolonial iteration, France seems to envision itself as having achieved utopia: it purports to be a good place. But for those who do not comfortably fit within these ideological walls, this utopia is perceived as a dystopia: a bad place. To be sure, it is a soft dystopia, one that operates on lower frequencies, which allows it to continue to pass as a utopia. My dissertation contends that the presence of dystopian tropes in the literary and 1 cinematographic works I explore exposes the République universelle française for what it is. Fictional dystopia emerges out of and unmasks its real-word, underhanded alter ego. The frequent presence of laughter alongside these dystopian tropes is striking, and calls for close consideration. How can one laugh in the face of cultural death? What is the function of this laughter? Does it serve to soften the moral indictment of the Republic? Does it serve to render the critique more vitriolic, tipping it toward the satirical? Does it constitute a self- soothing gesture for the writer or the artiste? Can this laughter also be complicit? Can it be the sign of the surrender of the self to the powerful appeal of utopia? The search for answers to these questions has brought the present work to the intersection of postcolonial critique, utopian/dystopian studies and laughter theory. My first chapter takes up an essay written by Martinican thinker René Ménil, a contemporary of Aimé Césaire, and contends that it provides an early theorization and illustration of this dystopian laughter. The essay, titled “Humour: Introduction à 1945,” published the same year, precedes the 1946 departmentalization of the vieilles colonies, meaning that Ménil was still a colonial subject at the time of its writing. It is from this unbearable sociopolitical position, rendered all the more acute by the horrors of World War II, that Ménil declared that since humor flourished in inhumane conditions, the colonies — where all manner of degradations reigned supreme — provided fertile grounds for the blossoming of laughter. He added, prophetically, “C’est bien, on le conçoit, sans aucune vanité déplacée que nous pensons n’être pas mal placés, aux Antilles, pour contribuer substantiellement à une littérature de l’humour” (146-147). The essay culminates with Ménil illustrating his argument with a dystopian vignette, complete with all attendant tropes. In this chapter, I begin by examining the theoretical and literary foundations upon which Ménil built his premise that humor can be weaponized against the status quo, paying close attention to his engagement with Charles Baudelaire, Sigmund Freud, and the Dada movement. I then conduct a close reading of Ménil’s dystopian scene, highlighting how it provides a tentative blueprint for the particular type of laughter he asserts will be the staple of the literatures to come. While it is true that France’s colonial empire has officially ended, it is also true that the dystopian laughter Ménil envisioned has endured. I argue that this ongoing presence attests to the fact that the change in political status simply transformed and then camouflaged France’s untenable universalizing proclivities beneath a utopian veneer. In subsequent chapters, I examine the joint presence of laughter and dystopian tropes in later francophone works as a mode of exposition of this concealed form of domination. In my second chapter, I move forward five decades in time and read the Trilogie Tropicale, a series of three novellas 2 written in the 1990s by Martinican author Raphaël Confiant. Although these works are not designated as participating in the dystopian genre, I demonstrate that Confiant employs distinctly dystopian tropes along with humor to construct his critique of the République française universelle. I preface my readings of these works by showing the ways in which the Departmentalization act of 1946 and the idea of francophonie were conceived as utopian projects. Their subsequent partial failure naturally resulted in dystopian features in the Antilles (indeed, dystopias are often the result of poorly planned utopias). In these literary works, Confiant’s excessive prose magnifies these features. I also contend that the author, however, is not against utopian thinking, but rather that the work of the postcolonial intellectual is to substitute good utopias for bad ones. This continued desire to believe in utopianism stands in stark contrast with the message of Matthieu Kassovitz’s La Haine, to which I turn in my third chapter. This 1995 film takes the French banlieues as its backdrop. Generally considered a drama belonging to the banlieues genre, many scholars have instinctively used the word dystopia to describe its somber universe. In this chapter, I offer a more systematic analysis of the film’s dystopian tropes, and I demonstrate that each of them seeks to expose the failure of the postcolonial utopia. A largely ignored aspect of La Haine is the constant presence of laughter and joking. I use Salvatore Attardo’s General Theory of Verbal Humor to show that the film’s ludic moments are tightly woven within the dystopian dynamic of exposition. Kassovitz’s film, I contend, is not simply dystopian; its brutal, pessimistic ending suggests that it is also anti-utopian—that is, that it displays a loss of faith in France’s utopian thinking altogether. While my second and third chapters detail ways that laughter and dystopian tropes work in concert to craft a coherent critique of the postcolonial République universelle française, my fourth and last chapter observes that laughter can also short-circuit the critical potential of the dystopian genre. It focuses on Case Départ, a 2011 film whose claim to fame is to be the first (and likely forever the only) French time-travel comedy about slavery. Violence — both physical and psychological — and domination are tropes that belong to narratives of enslavement just as much as to the dystopian genre. However, while laughter in the Trilogie and in La Haine always takes society and totalitarian thinking as its targets, Case Départ’s comedy often pokes fun at slaves just as much as at their masters. In this film, I argue, the use of dystopian tropes paired with laughter results in an amplification of violence rather than in a critique of it. The film’s message seems to be that modern-day postcolonial France is a vast improvement over colonial times. Although that may be true, it diverts the viewer’s attention from the problems that remain in contemporary France, deflating the sense of urgency they should elicit. Here, humor becomes a misguided instrument, a cloak beneath which a soft dystopia can continue to parade as an accomplished utopia. The film in itself does not 3 consciously participate in the critique I consider intrinsic to the dystopian genre; rather, it is through a rigorous analysis of its latent implications that we can apprehend the silent domination of the République universelle française. 4 Acknowledgements Here is what it takes for a single mother of color to finish a dissertation in her first year as a visiting assistant professor in a new city during a global pandemic and a long overdue uprising for racial justice: 1) determination, obviously; 2) willingness to think of sleep as something you used to do, and might do again someday; 3) belief that your presence in academia matters (not as easy as it seems for a POC); 4) chocolate; and 5) a deep deep deep section of supportive friends, family and colleagues. I thank Professor Karl Britto for directing this work back to shore every time it was threatening to get lost at sea. I thank Professor Thoraya Tlatli whose course on French colonialism allowed me to begin the hard work of shedding my own self-alienation. I thank Professor Damon Young for making completing this project possible.