Unlock the complexities of Albert Camus' The Stranger through Vincent Jouve's theory of enunciation, revealing the novel's plural and complex narrative instance. Discover how Camus' deliberate enunciative choices convey the absurdity of Meursault's existence and critique societal norms. This analysis highlights the multiple narrative voices, including the narrator, implied author, and real author, and their role in shaping the novel's themes. Explore how Jouve's theory provides a new lens for understanding the novel's underlying messages and the author's intentions, offering a fresh perspective on this classic work of literature. Dive into the world of absurdism and uncover the intricacies of Camus' masterpiece.
Extract
[...] Chapter 17. The linguistic analysis of enunciation and pragmatics. Literary text explanation at the oral. (p. 126-135). Armand Colin. https://shs.cairn.info/l-explication-de-texte-litteraire-a-l-oral--9782200621605-page-126?lang=fr Marchand, M. (no date given). Gérard Genette: Narratology / Signo - Applied Semiotic Theories. Signo - Louis Hebert. [...]
[...] Also, Lebaud's article allows us to postulate that the narrator's enunciation evolves throughout the novel (multiplicity of enunciating subjects in the first part, unique enunciative instance in the second part) showing the evolution of the character Meursault facing the absurdity of his existence. Starting from this postulate, it will be possible for us to study the multiplicity of characteristics of the narrator's voice and analyze how it contributes to showing Meursault's evolution facing his absurd existence. Therefore, we will attempt to answer the following question: What are the specificities of the narrative instance of the novel The Stranger of A. Camus according to the theory of Vincent Jouve? Do they allow Camus to convey the notion of absurdity within the novel? [...]
[...] Aspects of the Genesis of the Style of The Stranger. Languages, 29(118), 64-84. https://doi.org/10.3406/lgge.1995.1715 Cabillau, J. (1971). The expression of time in The Stranger by Albert Camus. Belgian Review of Philology and History, 866-874. https://doi.org/10.3406/rbph.1971.2879 Cagnan, E. (2020). Meursault between voices and text: the monotony of punctuation in The Stranger by Albert Camus. French Studies, 67-81. [...]
[...] Again, the implicit author highlights here the absurdity of social structures and notably the implicit rules of justice and the prison environment. Conclusion In short, the novel The Stranger reveals a multiplicity of the complex and original narrative instance in which coexist: a 'narrating extra-heterodiegetic with external focalization, telling and describing his existence, with the particularity of being omniscient and having the possibility of reporting the words of other characters as well as, in a limited way, 'digging' into the thoughts of others; an involved author through narrative choices elaborating a mise en abyme between the life of the real author, a philosopher leaning towards anarchism, who lived in Algeria and observed the confrontation between French colonizers and Arabs as well as critic of social and societal instances such as justice and the penal system; as well as an implicit author highlighting through enunciative choices, a Meursault disconnected from himself and traversing an absurd existence. [...]
[...] Narrative instances, vectors of absurdity A. Meursault, an absurd character, an object of evaluation by the narrative As Vincent Jouve wrote, the author's enunciative choices allow us to understand the author's evaluation of these characters (Jouve p.136). In this second part, we will show that the novel l'Etranger, allows Camus to depict a main character, certainly a witness and actor, but totally absent from himself, in an identity crisis as Lebaud pointed out (Lebaud p.105-133), a sign of the absurdity of his existence. [...]
