Moïse Moïse ; suivi de Au nom de nous qui ne sommes pas
The narrator of the novel Moïse Moïse, Nathan Mausus, grows up in a torn and superstitious Quebec family where only one figure stands out: Moïse, his older brother. A role model for the narrator and a scholar who contrasts with the rest of the Mausus family, Moïse shines through his absence. At first appearing as the sanest person in the child’s world, Moïse ends up suffering psychotic episodes. After a stay in hospital, he leaves Quebec to study in New York, before embarking on a journey across the globe. After a fifteen-year exile, he returns to Quebec, transformed and radicalized. Moïse Moïse is a novel of personal formation as well as a family portrait but it intends to divert the codes associated with these. It questions family mythology; initiatory rites, poverty associated to the territory, and evaluates porosity between madness and radicalization. Au nom de nous qui ne sommes pas aims to determine the role of identity within the characters radicalization process in the novel L'orangeraie (2013) by Larry Tremblay. To do so, this essay bases itself upon discourse analysis and the appropriation of sociological and philosophical concepts borrowed from Benedict Anderson, René Girard and Paul Ricœur. The first part examines two communities, one real and the other imagined, while the second considers an individual’s value in a society dominated by the collective. The gap between the two communities appears as an essential break-point, from which emerges a legitimization of sacrifice. From this idea, it is possible to understand how family mythology, the process of transmission, the religion instituted in the narrative, individuality and twinship are part of radicalization in Larry Tremblay's novel.
Larry Tremblay family mythology Bildungsroman Larry Tremblay radicalization Quebec literature