The Son Of The Mediterranean-Study Of Camus’s Cultural Identity From His Mediterranean Complex

Albert Camus, before or after his death, has been always the object of study in the field of literature. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, scholars have found more and more practical significances in this great French writer. From terrorism to heterogeneous cultures, from nationalism to social spirit, from professional ethics of journalists to moral demands of the whole society, his works and life give us a lot of revelations. Compared to his huge contribution, much more attention and objective interpretations should be paid to him. In recent years, the study of Camus’s cultural complex is underway, and the study of his cultural identity has become one of the best ways to approach this most familiar "strangers" and enter his literary world. However, related research hasn’t been of scale, still remain at the level of surface, with no deep-level analysis.Therefore, relying on Camus’s works and post-colonial theory, my paper tries to make a systematic demonstration of his cultural identity’s formation process around his strong Mediterranean complex. Based on the denial of the "pied-noir" cultural identity, we put forward the Mediterranean cultural identity for the first time, and restore Camus’s cultural image as the "first person" through the combination of writer’s works and life.The paper is divided into three chapters in addition to the introduction and conclusion. A brief overview of this study’s practical significance, trends, methods, value and overall structure is given in the introductory section with an emphasis on the importance of identity research.The first chapter is the questioning of the "pied-noir" cultural identity. With problems of this previous identity concept, the paper dissertates from four aspects, proving that Camus was deeply influenced by multiple cultures.The second chapters explores the possibility of Camus’s Mediterranean cultural identity. Firstly, trough a "third space"—the geographical and cultural Mediterranean, the Mediterranean cultural characteristics are summarized for th following analysis. Then, from the mother’s role and the spiritual mentor’s role, we elaborate on the influence of the Mediterranean culture over Camus’s physical and mental development, character building, cultural consciousness, etc. Finally, we analyze the influence of Mediterranean literary which prevailed in North Africa especially at the beginning of the last century on Camus’s literary consciousness, literary activities and literary style.As the most important part in this paper, the third chapter is the elaboration of the construction process of Camus’s Mediterranean cultural identity which are focused on his two works:L’exil et le royaume and Le premier homme. Derived from the self-narrative, identity is a compromise reached with the self-course, rather than a simple search of roots. In the two literary works of Camus, we can see clearly the tortuous process of writer’s cultural identity exploration. According to writer’s psychological course, the argument in this chapter involves successively three phases: location of role, self-identity, recognition of others. The road of "exile" and the road to "kingdom" are the main line of the first phase in which there is an analysis of two groups of contradictions:the inner struggle and the external revolt, the solitude and the solidarity. The second phase is a key to understand the construction of Camus’s cultural identity. The identity exploration of the "first person" is reproduced by the life trajectory of father and son. The third phase is the verification of Camus’s cultural identity by summarizing the characteristics of Mediterraneans. Therefore, we can see that Camus is not always a "Sisyphus" struggling among the painful choice of cultural identity, but a person of fortune who located the true self by participating personally the construction of Mediterranean cultural identity.The concluding section summarizes the views of the first three chapters, emphasizing the importance of Camus’s Mediterranean complex to his identity formation, the process of self-identity construction in L’exil et le royaume and Le premier homme, and the significance and continuity of this research.