La mémoire comme itinéraire et expérience topographique dans les écrits des générations successives à un génocide : Dora Bruder de Patrick Modiano et Peut-être Esther de Katja Petrowskaja
This thesis uses a topographic perspective in order to examine how the memory of traumatic events is apprehended in the literary works of post-genocidal generations. While these traumatic events happened in the past, their imprint remains perceptible in the present, according to the structures of what Marianne Hirsch called “postmemory”. Through the analysis of Patrick Modiano’s Dora Bruder (1997) and Katja Petrowskaja’s Peut-être Esther (Vielleicht Esther, 2014), we look at how memory taken as a topographic experience allows for, by the embodied relation implied, a rich and singular contact with this traumatic heritage, as well as the emergence of a plural, trans-temporal and transcultural look on postmemory and its resonance in contemporary literature. The first chapter is dedicated to the presentation, definition and illustration of the main theoretical concepts and themes guiding the reflection, such as postmemory, embodied memory and the idea of memorial topography. The second chapter is a reflection on the memory itineraries in Dora Bruder and on the presence-absence, in the contemporary parisian topography, of the young girl who gives her name to the narrative. Therefore, the narrative and literary processes used by Modiano in order to draw, through the mists of history, the portrait of a character still remaining uncatchable and enigmatic are examined in this section. The third chapter addresses the fragmentary and plural narrative that Petrowskaja elaborates in Peut-être Esther, with a particular attention to the way that the narrator interacts with memorial sites and links them together through her movements and travels. The analysis of various passages also brings to light the richness and relevance of the figure of the palimpsest in the expression and apprehension of memorial topography.
mémoire incarnée Patrick Modiano Katja Petrowskaja memory topography postmemory embodied memory palimpsest Patrick Modiano Katja Petrowskaja comparative literature