A Research On The Moral Of Tournier’s Works From The Perspective Of Intertextuality

Michel Tournier is the representative writer of French New Allegory School in the 20th century and the winner of the Grand Prix du roman de l’ Academie franqaise and the Prix Goncourt, two of the most important literature prizes in France. He is a member of the Academie Goncourt and is honored as one of the most outstanding writers in contemporary France. Tournier perceives himself as "a smuggler of philosophy", and is bent on spreading the philosophical thoughts of philosophers, such as Sartre, Spinoza, Nietzsche, Kant, etc. He is particularly good at parody and subversive rewriting on the basis of myths, legends, literary classics, philosophical thoughts and bible stories, so as to endow those classic themes with new symbolic color and profound philosophical significance.A scrutiny of the literature on Tournier shows that research at home is still in its infancy, with no monograph ever being published. Studies abroad have made great progress, but few papers discussed his works from the perspective of intertextuality. In this dissertation, we aim to make a comprehensive and systematic analysis of the intertextuality in his works, trying to explore the profound meaning embedded in the works under his intertextual narrative techniques by using the theory of intertextuality, especially the theories of Bakhtin, Kristeva, Genette and Bloom as the theoretical basis.The paper consists of three parts, including an introduction, a body and a conclusion.The first part briefly introduces Michel Tournier, his works and also the New Allegory School, reviews the studies on Tournier both at home and abroad, and describes the basic research theory--the theory of intertextuality.Chapter 1, "Writing and Rewriting:Tournier’Inheritance and Subversive Rewriting of Literary Myths", analyzes Tournier’s trilogy (his first three novels) around the intertextual writing techniques, such as borrowing, and rewriting of classic themes and analyze the intertextual rewriting of classic literary texts and classic mythological themes. Through the borrowing of mythological themes recurring in the literary history such as "Robinson", "Devil", "Twins", Tournier has realized the subversive classic rewriting, giving the old themes, old stories and old characters a new life.Chapter 2, "Literature and Philosophy:Dialogue between Tournier and Philosophy", explores the interactive dialogue relationship between Tournier’s works and philosophy. As a "smuggler of philosophy", Tournier focuses on infusing literary texts with eternal and profound philosophical thoughts. In his works, the thoughts of philosophers from Descartes to Kant of modern philosophy and from Nietzsche to Levi-Strauss of contemporary philosophy can always be found. Friday or the other island is a subversive rewriting of Robinson Crusoe in which Tournier follows the theoretical guideline of Levi-Strauss’s ethnology and combines the thoughts of Descartes and Spinoza. His "Friday" was not only an incarnation of Dionysus, who was "crazy and loves laughing, dancing and singing", but also a Zarathustra-like figure, and eventually turned into a "superman". Melanie in Maid and Death is a Sartre-type character who feels "empty" and "sick" of existence and. her reaction to death implies the "transcendentalism" ideology of Kant. "Robinson", "Tiffauges" and "Paul" are figures that have characteristics of "heterogeneous morbidity" called by Freud. They have an obsession of paraphilia. In short, it is through the philosophical references and metaphors and the interactive dialogue with many philosophers that Tournier has successfully shaped a number of figures with speculative thinking and so many philosophical works in the form of literary texts.Chapter 3, "Literature and Religion:the Intertextuality between Tournier’s Novels and the Bible", mainly analyzes the intertextual relationship between Tournier’s novels and the Bible, focusing on the intertextual writing techniques such as quotation and allusion. In Tournier’s works, the influence of the Bible can be found everywhere, so he is also known as a "religion novelist". This chapter starts with Friday or the other island, The family of Adam and Eleazar, Exodus to the West, three novels colorized by the Bible and filled with quotations from the Bible. It then explores the intertextual relationship between Tournier’s novels and the Bible through close reading and the interpretation of intertextuality.Chapter 4, "Literary Classics and Fairy Fables:the Second Rewriting for the Enlightenment of Children", studies the second rewriting for children at Tournier’s later stage of creation. This chapter demonstrates the causes for the changes in Tournier’s literature view, analyzes his fairy tale rewriting of classic themes and the childrenized and popularized rewriting for his first rewriting works, summaries Tournier’s language characteristics of his fairy tales, and explores the enlightening morals and philosophical thoughts in his works.The last part summarizes the intertextual creations by Tournier as "a myth novelist", "a philosophy novelist", "a religion novelist", "a contradiction novelist" and "a novelist for children". Then, based on Genette’s demarcation of five types of the intertextuality theory, this chapter analyzes the manifestation of the theory in Tournier’s texts. Finally, it reiterates that intertextuality is not the purpose of research, but a research method, aiming to explore the profound meaning in Tournier’s new allegory novels from the perspective of intertextuality.Analysis and interpretation of Tournier’s works from the theory of intertextuality enable readers to have a systematic, comprehensive and deeper understanding of the allegorical meaning of the works on the basis of fully understanding the intrinsic relations between Tournier’s work and external references and metaphorical features. Intertextuality manifests throughout Tournier’s works and it is the most prominent feature of his work. It is through the classic borrowing, rewriting, allusion and parody that Tournier gives ancient myths a new characteristic of the times and significance. By virtue of his superb artistic techniques, the perfect art form, works of everlasting significance, Tournier has become a writer representing the New Allegory School in contemporary times.