The Anxiety of Ascent: Middle-Class Narratives in Germany and America

Cette these se propose d’interroger la notion d’evenement comme motif organisateur de la fiction de Don DeLillo. En effet, l’assassinat du president J. F. Kennedy et les attentats du 11 septembre sont des phenomenes qui resistent infatigablement au « reel », et a toute tracabilite ontologique ou phenomenologique. A ce titre, ils excedent la pensee et exigent une reponse necessaire de l’auteur et de son ecriture face a leur irruption. Ils representent une incursion excessive dans le « reel » et se manifestent sous la forme du surplus. Mais l’evenement n’est pas simplement un surplus de realite, il est aussi un surplus de sens, entendu comme inadequation du signe a ce qu’il designe. Il s’agira de montrer dans un premier temps que l’evenement se montre excessivement dans le retrait de sa monstration. Nous aborderons cette dialectique du voilement et du devoilement a travers le prisme de l’Histoire en tenant compte de sa dimension non seulement phenomenologique et traumatique mais egalement a partir de la notion d’alterite que l’evenement sous-tend. Ce paradoxe une fois revele, nous nous pencherons sur la question du temps car l’evenement remet en question l’origine qui le fait advenir et ne prend sens seulement que lorsqu’il est advenu. Il deregle de facto la temporalite qui avait cours. Il sera alors question de mettre en lumiere le dereglement des instances du temps « classique » : passe, present et futur. Nous nous focaliserons sur la question du ressassement en nous interessant, par ailleurs, a la maniere par laquelle les concepts de temps, d’evenement et d’alterite fonctionnent de conserve. Enfin, nous aborderons l’evenement en tant qu’evenement-recit en accentuant notre etude sur le terrorisme et la terreur, notions indissociables de la fiction delillienne, en ce qu’ils fournissent des modeles de totalite et de totalisation que l’ecriture de l’evenement s’emploie — ethiquement — a defaire. En ce sens, l’evenement prendra la forme d’un contre-evenement. Il s’agira par consequent de decrypter les evenements de texte que DeLillo propose comme moyen de resistance a toute totalisation. Enfin, nous considererons certains personnages comme des evenements dans la mesure ou ils reassertent le caractere evenemential de l’individu.

https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-01157946/document

L'écriture de l'évènement dans la fiction de Don DeLillo

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Looking up and out: transcending techniques in counselling for grief and loss with philosophy

After the Columbine school shooting in 1999, concern about bullying crescendoed. A prominent belief emerged that bullying causes school shootings. However, many of the beliefs about bullying consti...

Columbine Revisited: Myths and Realities About the Bullying–School Shootings Connection

This thesis comprises a novel written for a general readership and an accompanying essay, both of which explore secrets and lies, shame and guilt, and confession and forgiveness in relation to celebrity culture and literature.
The novel, ‘Ophelia’, explores the notion that, beneath the surface of many lives, there may be thoughts and events people are ashamed of and wish to keep hidden. The revelation of secrets can have both expected and unexpected consequences. The novel focuses on the experiences of a woman who creates different identities and lives vastly different lifestyles at different times. When exposed, she must confront her shame and loss and ask others for forgiveness. The novel depicts the effects of her concealment on a small group of characters whose identities and relationships are challenged by her revelations. It questions the role of ‘truth’ in relationships and why people lie, including to those they claim to love, and it asks whether love can exist alongside lies, and to what extent it is possible to know another person. In addition, it examines different modes of celebrity, the role of the media in exposing celebrity scandals, and audience expectation and ambivalence in response to public confession.
The essay discusses the genesis and development of ‘Ophelia’ together with critical literature relevant to its key themes—keeping secrets and telling lies; shame, confession and forgiveness; and celebrity culture, including the relationship of celebrity and fan and the role and impact of the media, especially during a scandal. The essay refers to contemporary and historical examples of celebrity scandal, fabrication and confession, including the stories of two stars from the ‘golden age’ of Hollywood.
I propose that characters in novels are not forgiven as readily as celebrities, and that cultural and sexual transgression by a female character often results in her isolation, death or both. Three novels were chosen as case studies: Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles, William Styron’s Sophie’s Choice and Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things. Each has a female protagonist who is or becomes a mother and who carries a burden of secrets and shame. The novels, set in different countries, published in different eras and representing different cultural contexts and expectations, nevertheless share an interest in shame as a potent form of control.
My review of selected literature and celebrity culture suggests that the act of confession is essential to an individual’s concept of self. Confession is fraught as ‘truth’ is hard to speak and to hear. Differences between guilt and shame affect the ability to confess and the likelihood of forgiveness. Guilt arises from a person’s acts, whereas shame concerns who a person is or considers themselves to be, which makes both confession and forgiveness more complex propositions. An important aspect of confession is that it links to the confessor’s desire to find or regain a place in society, although that society might also be revealed as prejudiced,…

Rachel Panepinto

Papers

Catcher In The Rye