Melancholic Epistolarity : Letters and Traumatic Exile in the Novels of Three Francophone Women
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Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2013 Melancholic epistolarity : letters and traumatic exile in the novels of three Francophone women Rosemary Harrington Courville Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the French and Francophone Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Courville, Rosemary Harrington, "Melancholic epistolarity : letters and traumatic exile in the novels of three Francophone women" (2013). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 964. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/964 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. MELANCHOLIC EPISTOLARITY: LETTERS AND TRAUMATIC EXILE IN THE NOVELS OF THREE FRANCOPHONE WOMEN A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College In partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of French Studies by Rosemary Harrington Courville A.B., Wesleyan College, 2006 M.A., Louisiana State University, 2009 December 2013 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many people have played significant roles in the completion of this project. I would first like to thank my advisor, Dr. Kate Jensen, for her dedicated reading and her belief in me as a scholar despite my enthusiasm for adjectives. Without her keen editing eye and constant support, I would not have been able to complete this dissertation. I would also like to thank my committee members, Dr. Pius Ngandu, Dr. Rosemary Peters, and Dr. Jack Yeager for having challenged me in class and answered my questions about this project. I would also like to thank Dr. Adelaide Russo for having introduced me to and helped me to study in the beautiful country of Belgium. I would also like to express my appreciation to two teachers from Columbus High School who deeply impacted my academic career, Ms. Wingard and Ms. Chuites. Ms. Wingard’s tenth grade AP English Language and Composition taught me profound lessons about literature (The Color Purple!) and about myself as a writer. Ms. Chuites’s French classes introduced me to the language which has become my life’s work. I aspire to demonstrate the same passion for French in my own classes. I would also like to thank Aaron, Carrie, Melanie, Megan, and Nadia for supporting me, reading anything I asked them to read, and helping me maintain my sanity throughout this grueling process. Last but not least, I would like to thank my family from the bottom of my heart for their generosity and patience throughout the three years that it has taken to complete this dissertation. I would like to thank my parents for the emotional and financial support that they have given me. I would like to thank my brother, Robert, for keeping me laughing with cat memes during high- stress times. I would also like to thank the Courville and Verret familes for the delicious food and support that has significantly contributed to my ability to finish. Finally, I would like to ii thank Keith for being my rock, for enduring my frustrated moods, and for never faltering in his belief in me. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................... ii ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................... v INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................1 I. Epistolarity .......................................................................................................................1 II. Freud’s Concept of Melancholia .......................................................................................7 III. The Letter as Melancholic Space .................................................................................... 12 IV. Other Contemporary Epistolary Novels by Francophone Women……………………….22 V. Diaspora, Exile, and the Epistolary Text ......................................................................... 30 CHAPTER 1: L’EXIL SELON JULIA........................................................................................ 43 I. Introduction .................................................................................................................... 43 II. Man Ya’s Exile and Melancholia .................................................................................... 49 III. Man Ya’s “Letters” to God ............................................................................................. 64 IV. The Narrator’s Epistolary Text ....................................................................................... 73 V. Narrator’s Epistolary Narrative ....................................................................................... 86 CHAPTER TWO: LETTRE MORTE ....................................................................................... 101 I. Introduction .................................................................................................................. 101 II. Narcissism and Melancholia………………………………………………………....….111 III. Letter Image in Novels Before Lettre morte .................................................................. 119 IV. Idealized Father and Phantasmatic Vietnam .................................................................. 132 V. Lettre morte .................................................................................................................. 144 VI. Letter Image in Texts After Lettre morte ...................................................................... 155 CHAPTER 3: UNE FORME DE VIE ...................................................................................... 161 I. Introduction .................................................................................................................. 161 II. Grandiosity and Narcissism in Métaphysique des tubes and Une forme de vie ............... 168 III. Anorexia and Obesity ................................................................................................... 188 IV. Mythomania ................................................................................................................. 209 CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................................... 216 WORKS CITED ..................................................................................................................... 219 VITA ...................................................................................................................................... 226 iv ABSTRACT In her 1982 groundbreaking work on the epistolary form in novels, Janet Gurkin Altman gives a working definition of epistolarity which will be a guiding concept for this project; she defines it simply as: “the use of the letter’s formal properties to create meaning…” (Altman 4). Of course, to create meaning is a complicated endeavor. How does one create meaning from the letter’s formal properties? The contemporary authors who engage with epistolarity do so on several levels from the thematic to the structural. From novels that have several characters engaging in letter dialogues to one-sided exchanges that bear more resemblance to a diary than to a series of letters to a correspondent, the epistolary genre pushes the boundaries of public and private and creates questions about audience and intent that are not present in other forms. Within the last half century, the epistolary narrative has re-emerged in the works of marginalized authors from various linguistic and national backgrounds. Taking tropes from earlier epistolary texts, these contemporary authors create texts that maintain the intimate feel of earlier novels while also changing the genre to demonstrate their knowledge of trauma, exile, and psychoanalysis, an awareness that has permeated Western consciousness in the twentieth century. In the body of this project, I discuss epistolary novels by three very different authors: Gisèle Pineau’s L’Exil selon Julia, Linda Lê’s Lettre morte, and Amélie Nothomb’s Une forme de vie. Despite being from different racial, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds, these authors share two common interests: the French language and the use of the epistolary form. Additionally, these authors have all had a traumatic experience of diaspora and/or exile that has shaped their development as writers. Using Freudian theories of ego, melancholia, and narcissism, I contend that the self-reflective nature of the epistolary narrative is particularly conducive to exploring the psychological difficulties that result from this traumatic exile. v Specifically, in the texts that I examine, writing letters becomes a melancholic act in which the letter writer seeks to reconnect nostalgically with a past that never existed. vi INTRODUCTION I. Epistolarity In her 1982 groundbreaking work on the epistolary form in novels, Janet Gurkin Altman gives a working definition of epistolarity which will be a guiding concept for this project; she defines it simply as: “the use of the letter’s formal properties