L’analyse D’Un Barrage Contre Le Pacifique Par La Methode De L’archftpe Criticisme

Marguerite Duras is one of the most famous writers, playwrights and film directors of the first period in the twentieth century. Her most well-known works include Un barrage contre le Pacifique (translated into English as The Sea Wall). L’amant(translated into English as The Lover). Hiroshima mon amour, and so on. Her early creations have some realist and traditional color. But later she breaks this style. The stories are replaced by psychological descriptions. Therefore, she is often considered as a representative of New Novel.Marguerite Duras was born in Indochina. She has two brothers and her parents are all teachers of a primary school. Along with her family. Marguerite Duras spent her childhood in Indochina. This experience left a deep impression on her and even became the resource of her books. As a very popular work. The Sea Wall is considered to be an autobiographical novel. The mother of the novel is just the author’s mother. The experience of Marguerite Duras makes up the main story of this book. Previous studies particularly concentrate on the realist or autobiographical perspective. However, this paper aims to analyze it from a new perspective--archetypal criticism. We try to find the archetype of the mother and discover the the collective unconscious and myth archetypes hidden in this novel.This paper is divided into three parts:Introduction, three chapters and Conclusion.Introduction focuses on the works of Marguerite Duras, her life and creation, her compliments and son on. What’s more, we make an introduction about archetypal criticism and the explanation or reconstruction of the modern scholars. In fact, archetypal criticism has a deep influence on the literature, so it is possible for us to study a novel from the perspective of archetypar criticism.The second part includes three chapters. The first chapter focuses on elaborating theories related to archetypal criticism.The second chapter introduces Marguerite Duras and her book The Sea Wall. On the one side, it’s about the life of Marguerite Duras and her creation on literature. On the other side, it’s about the story that The Sea Wall tells us.The third chapter is the most important chapter. We try to analyze The Sea Wall by the theory--archetypal criticism. Firstly, we discuss a question:Is The Sea Wall really a autobiographical novel? Secondly, we analyze the destiny of the mother, the destiny of Sisyphus and compare their destinies. The destiny of the mother consist of a series of resistance and failure, including the death (the death of the horse, the death of the adopted child, the death of the plants and the death of the mother herself) and the failure of some plans(the failure of constructing some sea walls, the failure of expecting the marriage between M. Jo and Suzanne, the failure of selling the diamond in a high price).The third part is the last part. This paper tries to analyze The Sea Wall from the perspective of archetypal criticism. The Sea Wall is the magnum opus of Marguerite Duras. This paper aims to find the source of Duras’s creation and analyze why it can resonate with the readers. The conclusion include two aspects. At first, we find the archetypal image in the Greek myths. Secondly, we prove that during the creation of Marguerite Duras, she use the collective unconscious. The reason why a book has such a deep influence is that it can reflect the common experience of our human beings(collective unconscious) and contain some archetypes.