"Archetypal dimensions of the narrative je in Andre Langevin's ""Poussiere sur la ville"" and Hubert Aquin's ""Prochain épisode"""
Canfield, Stephen Allen
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/72481
Description
Title
"Archetypal dimensions of the narrative je in Andre Langevin's ""Poussiere sur la ville"" and Hubert Aquin's ""Prochain épisode"""
Author(s)
Canfield, Stephen Allen
Issue Date
1992
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Talbot, Emile J.
Department of Study
French
Discipline
French
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Literature, Modern
Literature, Canadian (English)
Abstract
This study joins concerns of Jungian criticism and narratology as applied to the identification and interpretation of archetypes autodiegetic narratives. Two 20th century quebecois novels are analyzed--Andre Langevin's Poussiere sur la ville, a linear readerly narrative, and Hubert Aquin's Prochain episode, a writerly text.
Within Langevin's text the archetypes of the wise old man, the shadow, the mother, the child and the anima are projected from a single psychic locus. However, given the multiplicity, and constellation of the projected archetypes, the psyche referenced is fragmented. Through the process of textual creation the various archetypal fragments are repressed in favor of the anima.
Prochain episode also exhibits a fragmented je. However, due to the writerly nature of the text this fragmentation is evident on both psychic and textual levels. Although there is a single narrative psyche, the je references seven distinct subject positions. In close sequence or simultaneously the je refers to the writer of a spy novel within the novel, the spy novel's protagonist, a confined mental patient, an imprisoned quebecois revolutionary, the lover of K, the text itself, and through autobiographical elements Aquin himself. These referents are paradoxically unified through the creation of text and the logocentric force of the first-person pronoun. Both fragmentation and unity gain meaning through multiple projections of the anima and the shadow.
The conclusion surveys theories concerning the narratological consequences of autodiegetic narration and suggests that an autodiegetic je always exhibits multiplicity. Readerly text such as Poussiere sur la ville manifest duality along a simple temporal axis. Writerly texts such as Prochain episode multiplicity along a temporal axis as well as through the presence of a complicated continuum of subject positions and constantly shifting referentiality. The final conclusion is that from the combined perspectives of narratological and Jungian archetypal analysis the shadow archetype is the essence of autodiegetic narration.
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