Helge Vidar Holm

Soi-même comme un Autre: La judaïté chez Marguerite Duras

With reference to Paul Ricoeur’s essays Time and Narrative I–III (1983–1985) and Oneself as Another (1990), this paper discusses the Jewish element in some of the works of Marguerite Duras, especially in AbahnSabana David (1970). Using some of Ricoeur’s concepts such as sameness (idem) and selfhood (ipse) together with his model of a triple mimesis, the author argues that Duras’ strong engagement for justice for minority groups and especially for the Jewish cause, has its roots in theprefiguration influenced by her upbringing in a French colony and by experiences in her close family during and after World War II. Her various uses of narrative silences characterize her style of writing, together with a deliberate confusion of identity marks in the presentation of her fictional characters.