Rewriting and reconfiguring alterity: Transformations of Levinassian ethics and the hidden god in the works of Sylvie Germain

Contemporary French novelist Sylvie Germain has received impressive attention from both the French press and critics alike, winning various literary prizes including the prestigious Prix Femina in 1989 and most recently the Prix Goncourt des Lyceens in 2005. Much of the acclaim centers around Germain's unique narrative style, which is often associated with magical realism, and her treatment of the question of God and the origin of evil, or le mal. Although these are perhaps the elements of her texts that most readily attract attention, I will argue that these questions are inextricably linked to Germain's own particular representation of Levinassian ethics. This dissertation will analyze Germain's corpus using Levinassian philosophy as its contextual framework. I will argue that Germain's texts enter into a dialog with Levinas that transforms Levinassian ethics, and ultimately theosophy. Germain's literary relationship to Levinas is revealed through Charles Mauron's intertextual and psychoanalytical technique of the superimposition of an author's texts in order to reveal the fundamental structure of the metatext. The principal theoretical approaches to Germain's text will therefore be both philosophical and psychoanalytic.;The first chapter introduces the device of the double as the subject of a close analysis; for, it is the figure of the double that leads us most quickly and readily to Levinas. This will then lead to an analysis of the role of the double as Other in particular with regard to Levinassian phenomenological thought on the Self-Other relationship. The second chapter will also focus on the notion of alterity, turning the discussion to the psychological implications of a doubled Self, alienated individuals who also treat the Self as an Other. Both of theses chapters will also problematize the Levinassian notion of reciprocity in the Self-Other relationship. The third chapter of the thesis will concern the ethical dilemma that arises from the problem of reciprocity in the first two chapters and will examine the role of the Third Party with regard to reciprocity. The fourth chapter will concentrate on the theosophical implications of Germain's shift in Levinas' philosophy and will examine Germain's particular understanding of the Pascalian "hidden God," deus abscondicus.