Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1994 Narrative and Representation in French Colonial Literature of Indochina. Jean Marie turcotte Walls Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Walls, Jean Marie turcotte, "Narrative and Representation in French Colonial Literature of Indochina." (1994). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 5703. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/5703 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 Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. 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Ann Arbor, MI 48106 NARRATIVE AND REPRESENTATION IN FRENCH COLONIAL LITERATURE OF INDOCHINA A Dissertation Submittedto 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 and Italian by Jean Marie Turcotte Walls B.A., Mississippi State University, 1979 M.A., Mississippi State University, 1981 May 1994 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Writing is a lonely, lengthy, and arduous task. The writing of this document would not have been possible without the support of my family-immediate and extended. I wish to thank all the family members and friends who have helped me along the way. My husband. Mark, and my sons, Jon Mark and Evan, have been understanding and supportive. I am grateful to my parents and my parents-in-law who have kindly helped us all along. I am grateful to the director of this work, Dr. Nathaniel Wing, and to the committee members, Dr. John Erickson, Dr. Adelaide Russo, Dr. Patrick Mensah, Dr. Greg Schufreider, and Dr. David Madden, for their support and direction. I would also like to thank other members of the Department of French and Italian for their support and encouragement through the years. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i i ABSTRACT............................................................................................................... iv CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION................................................................................ 1 2 COLONIAUSM: POUTICS AND STRATEGY..................*......................... 1 7 Assumptions and Justification of Colonial Imperialism ......................... 3 5 Role of the Colonizer .............................................................................................. 5 4 3 COLONIAUSM: DISCOURSE AND TEXT ............... 7 0 4 ASSIMILATION: STRATEGIES OF EFFACEMENT SUR LA ROUTE MANDARINE. ROLAND DORGELES ......................................... 122 5 EXOTICISM: STRATEGIES OF DISPLACEMENT LES CIVILISES. CLAUDE FARRERE............................................................................153 6 TRANSLATION: STRATEGIES OF MEDIATION LE KILOMETRE 83. HENRY DAGUERCHES .............................................................186 7 CONCLUSION......................................................................................................................218 BIBUOGRAPHY.................................... 222 VITA............................................................................................................................................................ 230 i i i ABSTRACT This study focuses on the establishment and critical legitimation of colonial literature as a genre during the period of intense colonial development in France from approximately 1871-1930. Fictional accounts of the French involvement in Indochina are used to examine the paradoxes of colonial representation. Les Civilis6s by Claude Farr&re, Le Kilometre 83 by Henri Daguerches, and Sur la Route Mandarine by Roland Dorgel&s are examined in terms of the inconsistencies and contradictions which emerge from the efforts of the narrator/colonizer to inscribe and represent the other in a composite colonial system. These texts are examined in terms of three textual processes: 1) assimlation, which effaces the difference of the other, the colonized; 2) exoticism, which removes the other from the realm of validation, short- circuiting the recognition of the other; and 3) translation/mediation, which acknowledges difference, but presumes to translate the other’s being into mutually sufficient terms. In colonial novels, the processes of assimilation, exoticism, and translation/mediation are means by which the other can be variously accounted for, subsumed, or effaced. Ultimately, the novelisticform which engages the discourse of colonialism cannot successfully sustain efforts to portray either a theoretically seamless and unified system of colonial authority or a similarly univocal conception of self. The fact that objective realist colonial texts fail, intrinsically, to represent their purported subject and subjects derives partially from colonialism’s social and idealogical paradox; there was not nor could there be a logically unified, normalized society of colonizers and colonized. Western conceptions of authority, totalization, transcendence, subjectivity, and objectivity are brought into question in works where colonialism and imperialism are dominant and organizing structures. The oppositions and questions that arise in the juxtaposition of a Western “dominant* (the colonizer) over and against an Eastern "other” (the colonized) are played out textually in novels of a genre which sought to describe and represent colonialism faithfully, realistically, objectively. This study examines the colonial relationship, not only as a function of a socio-political construct, but also in terms of the cultural and philosophical implications and groundings of such a relationship. v CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Key questions concerning Western self-definition and representation are illuminated by the interplay of textual tensions within colonial literature. Western conceptions of authority, totalization, transcendence, subjectivity, and objectivity are brought into question in works where colonialism and imperialism are dominant and organizing structures. The oppositions and questions that arise in the juxtaposition of a Western "dominant” (the colonizer) over and against an Eastern “other" (the colonized) are played out textually in novels of a genre which sought to describe and represent colonialism faithfully, realistically, objectively. A central textual crisis-a representational fallacy-emerges from the overlay of Western ethic and aesthetic upon the indigenous culture of the colonized. The inability to inscribe and represent authentic difference either textually or philosophically in the composite colonial system is the root of this underlying textual tension. The fact that the objective realist colonial texts fail, intrinsically, to represent truly and fully their purported subject and subjects derives partially, of course, from colonialism's social and ideological paradox: there was not actually nor could there be a logically unified, normalized society of colonizers and colonized. But more significant, in terms of the aims and presumptions of the colonial novel's objective-realist representational terms, is the fact that the colonial novel, as a function of that literary formula and perspective, is subject not only to the bind of the socio-political aporia, but more broadly to the aporetic bind of language itself. Issues related to colonial imperialism did not disappear with the official demise or rejection of colonial controls. Concerns about the nature of power and control as 1 they were magnified in the colonial context continue to be a source of critical