Performing the Void: The Violence of the Unassimilated in Some Contemporary British Narratives

The article addresses aspects of the vulnerable text and of textual vulnerability as expressed in fictional representations of trauma. More specifically, it focuses on the violence of a writing that swells up to indirectly evoke and perform the unbearable and unassimilated traumatic event. To do so,...

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Main Author: Jean-Michel Ganteau
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Centre de Recherche "Texte et Critique de Texte" 2017-03-01
Series:Sillages Critiques
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/sillagescritiques/4917
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author Jean-Michel Ganteau
author_facet Jean-Michel Ganteau
author_sort Jean-Michel Ganteau
collection DOAJ
description The article addresses aspects of the vulnerable text and of textual vulnerability as expressed in fictional representations of trauma. More specifically, it focuses on the violence of a writing that swells up to indirectly evoke and perform the unbearable and unassimilated traumatic event. To do so, it concentrates on the paradox according to which the extremum of textual matter is solicited the better to privilege the powers of metalepsis. The modalities of such violent writing are indexed on rhythmical effects whose purpose is to perform an absence, an inaccessibility and a compulsion to repeat that find their origin in the category of belatedness. The vulnerable text is vulnerable, precisely, because it opens up to that which is not said or known, because it is dependent on presenting that which it can only keep silent, and in so far as it becomes a rhetorical or figural symptom, expressing and performing some heteronomy to the wound. Ultimately, the article concentrates on the figure of the archive that performs yet another violence by dramatising the possibility of evoking the void at the origin of trauma through its very impossibility.
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spelling doaj-art-a5048468f8f048e8a00b6099a25a6af32025-01-30T13:46:54ZengCentre de Recherche "Texte et Critique de Texte"Sillages Critiques1272-38191969-63022017-03-012210.4000/sillagescritiques.4917Performing the Void: The Violence of the Unassimilated in Some Contemporary British NarrativesJean-Michel GanteauThe article addresses aspects of the vulnerable text and of textual vulnerability as expressed in fictional representations of trauma. More specifically, it focuses on the violence of a writing that swells up to indirectly evoke and perform the unbearable and unassimilated traumatic event. To do so, it concentrates on the paradox according to which the extremum of textual matter is solicited the better to privilege the powers of metalepsis. The modalities of such violent writing are indexed on rhythmical effects whose purpose is to perform an absence, an inaccessibility and a compulsion to repeat that find their origin in the category of belatedness. The vulnerable text is vulnerable, precisely, because it opens up to that which is not said or known, because it is dependent on presenting that which it can only keep silent, and in so far as it becomes a rhetorical or figural symptom, expressing and performing some heteronomy to the wound. Ultimately, the article concentrates on the figure of the archive that performs yet another violence by dramatising the possibility of evoking the void at the origin of trauma through its very impossibility.https://journals.openedition.org/sillagescritiques/4917performanceDerridatraumaFreudmetalepsisvulnerability
spellingShingle Jean-Michel Ganteau
Performing the Void: The Violence of the Unassimilated in Some Contemporary British Narratives
Sillages Critiques
performance
Derrida
trauma
Freud
metalepsis
vulnerability
title Performing the Void: The Violence of the Unassimilated in Some Contemporary British Narratives
title_full Performing the Void: The Violence of the Unassimilated in Some Contemporary British Narratives
title_fullStr Performing the Void: The Violence of the Unassimilated in Some Contemporary British Narratives
title_full_unstemmed Performing the Void: The Violence of the Unassimilated in Some Contemporary British Narratives
title_short Performing the Void: The Violence of the Unassimilated in Some Contemporary British Narratives
title_sort performing the void the violence of the unassimilated in some contemporary british narratives
topic performance
Derrida
trauma
Freud
metalepsis
vulnerability
url https://journals.openedition.org/sillagescritiques/4917
work_keys_str_mv AT jeanmichelganteau performingthevoidtheviolenceoftheunassimilatedinsomecontemporarybritishnarratives