| In this thesis, we explore the potential of writing to represent identity in the literary works of Marguerite Duras. The corpus, which was chosen and grouped according to the use of diverse strategies that work to broaden our analysis, is comprised of six books: L'Amant and L'Amant de la Chine du Nord in chapter one, Hiroshima mon amour and Le Ravissement de Lol V. Stein in chapter two, and Ecrire and C'est tout in chapter three.;The perspectives provided by the diverse analytical strategies presented in each of the three chapters come together to attest to the otherness and elusiveness of the self, dimensions that are unattainable through writing. They also allow us to question the concepts of subjectivity and selfhood: writing produces an expression and a representation of itself, not of the author's own identity. The voice recorded in literature is therefore not that of the author but one that represents the otherness and plurality of the human identity. Writing then becomes, for Duras, a quest to attain this other, and the author becomes the door through which this other, or Absolute, passes from the virtual to the physical to become text.;We begin our analysis by presenting the main theoretical concerns in regards to autobiographical and biographical writing in order to show that the self, much like the autobiographical genre that attempts to represent it, eludes a strict definition and defies representation. Furthermore, we pursue our analysis to show that any textual identity created is done so at the expense of the uniqueness of ones past: evoking one's memories to convert them into narrative renders them, in a sense, sterile. Finally, by comparing Duras' writings to those of the great mystics, we are able to observe certain aspects of her conceptualization of the self that would have otherwise escaped us. For Duras, writing reveals an other that resides at the centre of the self, an unknown part of the self that continuously demands to be put into existence through writing. |
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