scholarly journals Beyond the Margins: Identity Fragmentation in Visual Representation in Michel Tournier’s "La Goutte d’or"

Text Matters ◽  
2012 ◽  
pp. 250-263
Author(s):  
Richard J. II Gray

In the final scene of Michel Tournier’s postcolonial novel La Goutte d’or (1986), the protagonist, Idriss, shatters the glass of a Cristobal & Co. storefront window while operating a jackhammer in the working-class Parisian neighbourhood on the Rue de la Goutte d’or. Glass fragments fly everywhere as the Parisian police arrive. In La Goutte d’or, Tournier explores the identity construction of Idriss through a discussion of the role that visual images play in the development of a twentieth-century consciousness of the “Other.” At the beginning of the novel, a French tourist takes a photograph of Idriss during her visit to the Sahara. The boy’s quest to reclaim his stolen image leads him from the Sahara to Marseille, and finally to the Rue de la Goutte d’or in Paris. The Rue de la Goutte d’or remains one the most cosmopolitan neighbourhoods of the city. In Tournier’s novel, the goutte d’or also corresponds to a symbolic object: a Berber jewel. It is the jewel that Idriss brings with him, but which he also subsequently loses upon his arrival in Marseille. From the very moment that the French tourist photographs him, a marginalization of Idriss’s identity occurs. Marginality, quite literally, refers to the spatial property of a location in which something is situated. Figuratively speaking, marginality suggests something that is on the edges or at the outer limits of social acceptability. In this essay, I explore the construction of the marginalized postcolonial self (the “Other”) through an examination of the function of visual representation in the development of a postcolonial identity in La Goutte d’or. In the end, I conclude that the construction of a postcolonial identity is based upon fragmentation and marginalization, which ultimately leads its subject to create an identity based upon false constructions.

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 109
Author(s):  
Besin Gaspar

This research deals with the development of  self concept of Hiroko as the main character in Namaku Hiroko by Nh. Dini and tries to identify how Hiroko is portrayed in the story, how she interacts with other characters and whether she is portrayed as a character dominated by ”I” element or  ”Me”  element seen  from sociological and cultural point of view. As a qualitative research in nature, the source of data in this research is the novel Namaku Hiroko (1967) and the data ara analyzed and presented deductively. The result of this analysis shows that in the novel, Hiroko as a fictional character is  portrayed as a girl whose personality  develops and changes drastically from ”Me”  to ”I”. When she was still in the village  l iving with her parents, she was portrayed as a obedient girl who was loyal to the parents, polite and acted in accordance with the social customs. In short, her personality was dominated by ”Me”  self concept. On the other hand, when she moved to the city (Kyoto), she was portrayed as a wild girl  no longer controlled by the social customs. She was  firm and determined totake decisions of  her won  for her future without considering what other people would say about her. She did not want to be treated as object. To put it in another way, her personality is more dominated by the ”I” self concept.


Author(s):  
Barbara Elizabeth Hanna ◽  
Peter Cowley

China Miéville’s 2009 'Weird' detective novel The City and The City is a tale of two city states, culturally distinct, between which unpoliced contact is forbidden. While residents of each city can learn about the other’s history, geography, politics, see photographs and watch news footage of the other city, relations between the two are tightly monitored and any direct contact requires a series of protocols, some of which might seem reasonable, or at least familiar: entry permits, international mail, international dialing codes, intercultural training courses. What complicates these apparently banal measures is the relative positioning of the two cities, each one around, within, amongst the other. The two populations live side by side, under a regime which requires ostentatious and systematic disregard or 'unnoticing' of the other in any context but a tightly regulated set of encounters. For all that interculturality is endemic to everyday life in the 21st century, what is striking is that critical and popular uptake of this novel so frequently decries the undesirability, the immorality even, of the cultural separation between the two populations, framing it as an allegory of unjust division within a single culture, and thus by implication endorsing the erasure of intercultural difference. We propose an alternative reading which sees this novel as exploring the management of intercultural encounters, and staging the irreducibility of intercultural difference. We examine how the intercultural is established in the novel, and ask how it compares to its representations in prevalent theoretical models, specifically that of the Third Place.


2012 ◽  
Vol 66 (4) ◽  
pp. 494-530
Author(s):  
Cara Weber

Victorian writers often focus questions of ethics through scenes of sympathetic encounters that have been conceptualized, both by Victorian thinkers and by their recent critics, as a theater of identification in which an onlooking spectator identifies with a sufferer. George Eliot's Middlemarch (1871–72) critiques this paradigm, revealing its negation of otherness and its corresponding fixation of the self as an identity, and offers an alternative conception of relationship that foregrounds the presence and distinctness of the other and the open-endedness of relationship. The novel develops its critique through an analysis of women's experience of courtship and marriage, insisting upon the appropriateness ofmarriage as a site for the investigation of contemporary ethical questions. In her depiction of Rosamond, Eliot explores the identity-based paradigm of the spectacle of others, and shows how its conception of selfhood leaves the other isolated, precluding relationship. Rosamond's trajectory in the novel enacts the identity paradigm's relation to skeptical anxieties about self-knowledge and knowledge of others, and reveals such anxieties to occur with particular insistence around images of femininity. By contrast, Dorothea's development in ethical self-awareness presents an alternative to Rosamond's participation in the identity paradigm. In Dorothea's experience the self emerges as a process, an ongoing practice of expression. The focus on expression in the sympathetic or conflictual encounter, rather than on identity, enables the overcoming of the identity paradigm's denial of otherness, and grounds a productive sympathy capable of informing ethical action.


2013 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 222-236 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Marks

Visibility is central to surveillance, but the term is both complex and ambiguous. This article seeks to  add to that complexity and prdocutively investigate the ambiguity by putting forward the concept of the 'unvisible' represented in China Mieviile's recent dystopian novel, The City & The City. Mieville's fiction depicts a world in which characters live in two cities that occupy the same space--are, in the novel's terms, 'topolgangers'. In order to maintain this curious situation, people from one city are required to unsee those from the other, to make them unvisible.  Failure to do so incures punishment from a surveillance force. These and other inventive notions challenge what constitutes visibility.  Briefly addressing ideas on visibility by surveillance theorists, the article argues that The City & The City usefully tests out those ideas. Gary T. Marx has written about the potential 'gradations' between the visible and the invisible. Through a detalied reading of the novel, the article argues for the potential value of the 'unvisible' in those gradations.


Diksi ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marliza Arsiyana ◽  
Pratomo Widodo

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mendeskripsikan persamaan dan perbedaan urutan dan bentuk konstituen klausa dengan memokuskan pada klausa transitif BP dan BI berikut frase nominalnya sebagai argumen dalam klausa. Sumber data penelitian ini berupa teks tulis, yakni novel Le Dernier Jour d’Un Condamné karangan Victor Hugo dan terjemahannya oleh Lady Lesmana dengan judul “Hari Terakhir Seorang Terpidana Mati”. Metode analisis data menggunakan metode agih. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan urutan dasar klausa BP dan BI bertipe sama, yaitu verba mendahului objek. Perbedaannya pada sifat argumen objek. Pada BP objek berpreposisi termasuk dalam konstituen inti sedangkan dalam BI termasuk konstituen periferal. Pada BP, konstituen  Nod dan Np yang berupa pronominal berada di depan  verba, sedangkan dalam BI konstituen Nod dan Noi selalu di belakang verba. Pada tataran frase nominal, perbedaan terletak pada urutan modifikator demonstratif, dan pronomina persona. Pada BP sebelum nomina inti, sedangkan pada BI setelah nomina inti. Modifikator ekasilaba dan dwisilaba dalam BP terletak di depan nomina inti, sedangkan adjektiva yang lebih dari dua silaba, dan adjektiva yang berkaitan dengan warna, agama, dan verba partisif terletak di belakang nomina inti. Sementara itu, adjektiva dalam BI terletak setelah nomina inti.Kata Kunci: urutan dan bentuk konstituen, klausa, frase nomina, sintaks WORDS ORDERS IN FRENCH AND BAHASA INDONESIA CLAUSESABSTRACTThis research aims at analyzing the similarities and differences of the words orders and their forms in the transitive clauses and its argument, noun phrases, between French and Bahasa Indonesia. The research data resources are taken from written texts i.e.: The novel Le dernier jour d’un comdamné à mort by Victor Hugo and its translation Hari Terakhir Seorang Terpidana Mati by Lady Lesmana. This research uses “segmenting immediate constituent technique” to analyse the data. The result shows that French and Bahasa Indonesia have the same basic words orders in transitive clauses, i.e. verbs precede the object. The differences are found in the characteristic of the object. A prepositional object in French is categorized as the main argument, while in Bahasa Indonesia it is a peripheral argument. The position of Nod and Np constituent, which are pronominal, in French precedes the verb, whereas, in Bahasa Indonesia, they are always placed after the verb. Regarding the noun phrase, the differences are found at the position of demonstrative and possessive modifiers. Their position in French is placed before the main noun, while in Bahasa Indonesia after the main noun. The adjectives with one or two syllables are placed before the main noun and the adjectives with more than two syllables or the adjective related to color, religion, and participles are placed after the main noun. On the other hand, adjective in Bahasa Indonesia is always placed after the main noun.Keywords: words orders and form, clause, noun phrase, syntax


Author(s):  
Juan Evaristo Valls Boix

El propósito del presente estudio consiste en analizar las relaciones entre subjetividad y espacio urbano a través de la novela Jakob von Gunten de Robert Walser. La novela desarrolla una tensión entre, de un lado, un instituto de enseñanza y una forma de subjetividad entendida como interioridad privada y normativizada, y, de otro, la ciudad como espacio de lo múltiple y lo irrepresentable y una forma de subjetividad entendida como intimidad o secreto. La tensión entre ambas relaciones espacio-sujeto supone una versión peculiar de la dialéctica entre modernización y modernidad tal y como Benjamin o Kracauer la relatan, y permite pensar formas alternativas y superpuestas de concebir la subjetividad y el espacio a partir de distintas lecturas de un texto. The purpose of the present study is to analyze the relations between subjectivity and urban space through the novel Jakob von Gunten by Robert Walser. The novel develops a tension between, on the one hand, an institute of teaching and a form of subjectivity understood as private and normative interiority, and, on the other, the city as a space of the multiple and the unrepresentable and a form of subjectivity understood as intimacy The secret. The tension between both space-subject relations supposes a peculiar version of the dialectic between modernization and modernity as Benjamin or Kracauer relate it, and allows to think alternative and superposed forms of conceiving the subjectivity and the space from different readings of a text.


2018 ◽  
pp. 111-123
Author(s):  
Anna Gawarecka

It is only natural that the rapid secularization of the Czech society has become an object of interest of political scientists, religious and cultural scientists and sociologists. The secularization is sometimes considered a result of dissolution of the traditional models treated as incontrovertible identity based on belief in the existence of the highest instance. It is regarded a donor and guarantee of absolute rights (ontological and ethical) determining the ways in which the anthroposphere operates. This situation often raises concern; on the one hand, it is related to ideological pluralism increasingly hindering the axiological agreement between all members of the society and, on the other hand, it initiates a discussion about the necessity of searching and confirming new identity patterns. Františka Jirousová’s novel Vyhnanci (The Exiles) presents the spiritual indecisions of young people and as such it could be acknowledged as a literary manifesto of this concern. The prestigious Jiří Orten prize awarded to the novel shows that religious and metaphysical questions are still important issues which do not cease to affect the postmodern world.


2008 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Attila Gergely Mráz

This paper explores some possibilities of interpreting the motif of the city in John Dos Passos's Manhattan Transfer as a multiply vacuous common sphere. First, it is shown how the spatial aspect of the city can be characterized by its twofold rendition as a place endowed with intrinsic ambiguity on the one hand, and as a defective common space on the other. Second, a structurally similar duality is investigated in the temporal experience of Dos Passos's city dwellers by distinguishing between (vacuous) present time and historicity, each associated with attributes of the city as a place and a space. Finally, it is shown that the postulated spatiotemporal vacuity of the city correlates with the pervasively aesthetic character of the urban sphere, where interpersonal relations are inherently deficient. This leads to an ultimate, moral vacuity in the common urban space; the only aspect of the vacuity discussed which is not absorbed at the end of the novel.


2020 ◽  
pp. 7-22
Author(s):  
Shaima Muzher Abid Alreda Alsaedi

Dystopian literature is important in old and modern literature. It depicts a world in which everything is imperfect, chaotic and distorted. It shows a nightmarish image yet it is true in some afflicted communities. It mainly deals with war, oppression and disastrous situations. Almost all the characteristics of dystopian literature are real in Ahmed Saadawi’s novel Frankenstein in Baghdad. These characteristics are real and tangible in the place where the events of the novel occurred. These characteristics are manifested in people’s fear from the government, the American troops and terrorism attacks. Also the unstable life that they are forced to adapt.  In addition, the lack of freedom and independence create a huge gap between citizens and the government. Baghdad was devastated by many oppressive factors like: American annoying troops, terrorists’ explosions attacks, incompetent government highly officials, and militias’ sectarian attacks. The only imaginative tool of dystopia that Saadawi use is the creation of Whatsitsname.  Saadawi tries to drag his readers’ attention to a magical-realistic world. All the other incidents are real and present in everyday life in Baghdad in 2005; like the unsafe capital, the disintegration of family members, the separated limps of victims. Saadawi virtually described the dark era in Baghdad at that time. The bloodshed, the torture and massive killing was overwhelming the city.  Dystopian fiction links elements of truth that is specific to the time in which it is written in with science or imaginary elements that represent the terrifying direction we are winding to. Frankenstein in Baghdad converses this classic formula: the dystopian fundamentals of the novel are not engrained in its hypothetical and mythical elements but rather in the very real, frightening violence that Baghdad witnessed in 2005.


ATAVISME ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-44
Author(s):  
Purwantini Purwantini

Di lingkungan masyarakat Jawa masih terdapat otoritas tradisional yang membawa kewibawaan dan mempunyai status sosial tinggi di mata rakyat, otoritas tradisional tersebut adalah golongan priayi. Golongan priayi mempunyai gaya hidup yang spesifik jika dibandingkan dengan kelompok masyarakat lainnya. Ciri­‐ciri gaya hidup golongan priayi antara lain berupa adat istiadat yang baik, perilaku sopan santun, dan selalu berbicara dengan bahasa yang halus. Secara fisik dapat dilihat dari bentuk rumah kediaman, pakaian kebesaran, gelar kekuasaan, ritualisasi, serta simbol­‐simbol yang melekat padanya. Jadi, golongan priayi adalah kaum bangsawan termasuk para bupati, pegawai pemerintah kolonial, serta keturunan raja-raja di pulau Jawa. Namun, kaum priayi dalam novel Gadis Pantai adalah seorang bangsawan yang berperilaku kasar, biadab, serta berbuat kekejaman terhadap wanita yang pernah dipeliharanya. Akhirnya, otoritas tradisional ini berubah menjadi carut marut tanpa terkendali karena kebiasaan memperlakukan para gundiknya secara tidak manusiawi bahkan agama digunakan sebagai kedok untuk melecehkan kaum santri. Abstract: Javanese society recognizes a traditional authority that shows esteem and possesses high social status in the eyes of the society. This traditional authority is called “priayi”. The life style of this priayi compare to the other group of society’s life style is specific. The natures of their life style among others are politeness, good conduct, and the use of fine language for communication. This group of society can be identified from their physical existence such as their houses, outfits, titles, rituals, and symbols attached to them. The priayi society group is the group of noblemen including the city council, employees working for colonial government, kings and their ancestors in Java. Nevertheless, priayi in the novel Gadis Pantai is unlike the typical priayi member. In this novel, the priayi is the group of people with harsh conduct, bad manner, disrespect, and cruelty to their concubines. At the end, this traditional authority went out of control and turned into disarray due to their inhumane treatment toward their concubines. To some extent, they even exploited religion as a tool to misjudge the group santri ‘strict adherent of Islam’. Key Words: priayi; santri; concubines


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