La fugueuse et ses avatars dans l'oeuvre romanesque de Suzanna Jacob

Abstract

Suzanne Jacob, poet, essayist and novel writer, is one of the most considerable representatives of the modern French-Canadian literature. Jacob’s novels, depicted in the feminist or even metafeminist current, being intriguing, surprise us, being wrapped in mystery, arouse the interest of both readers and literary critics. The character of fugitive woman is an emblematic figure, appearing in different configurations and dimensions, correctly renders up the aesthetics of Jacob’s novels. The main goal of the research work is study and analyze of women-characters, present in eight novels of above-mentioned author. The monograph consists of four chapters. In the first chapter we review very rich artistic and creative road of Suzanne Jacob, describing the factors, events and experiences, which shaped (moulded) the world of fiction of the novelist. The next chapter deals with the theory of the literary character, particularly describing three main research perspectives, dominating in the modern literary theory. The choice of pragmatic approach, intending an active participation of the reader in the interpretative analytical process, determined the methods used to analyze of the characters of Suzanne Jacob. The third chapter of the monograph is dedicated for the description of the Jacob’s women protagonists, as analogons of the human characters (effect of reality). Vincent Jouve, the author of the theoretical perspective, speaks of so called l’effet-personne, meaning all the efforts, which make a reader identifying himself with homo fictus, as it is in getting along with flesh and blood person. The onomastical evolutions, which means semantics of names, nicknames, pseudonyms, titles and other descriptions, analyzed in the first subsection of the third chapter (My name is fugitiveness) proved the fugitive, diverse and multidimensional nature, that was permanently transforming Jacob’s women protagonists. But fragmentary and disintegrated techniques both implicit external (physical) portrait and internal one (internal experiences) featured in the second subsection (Disintegrated portraits or the essence of fugitiveness) revealed several constant principles (e.g. beauty, careless vestments, red colour, labyrinthiness, nomadism, artistry), specifying fugitive and ephemeral existence of the women protagonists. The character, as the integral element of the structure of the depicted world, narratologically, hermeneutically and axiologically programmed (le personnage comme pion), is the centre of attention of the next chapter (Adventures with duality), consisting of four subsections. The first one contains a description of the main literary genres, like postmodern novel, metafeministic novel, psychological novel, family saga, or compositional elements of fugue. All of these are parts of the architectural structures of the Jacob’s novels, the knowledge of which helps to a large extent to understand and predict the character’s behaviour. The content and structure of the character of fugitive woman is inseparably connected with the synonymous subject of duality. Furthermore, the scenarios proved intertextually the presence of numerous duality configurations which were described in the next subsections. In the dialectics of the executioner—victim relationship, a special attention was put on the dual personality (dédoublement), caused by the cruel suffering of the women protagonists, the victims of family violence, permanently fleeing from the traumatic events of their childhood. Polisemantic trickster, being thoroughly a figure of „double wanderer” (Doppelgänger), evil one (black character) or the good ghost (helper, redeemer), depicted a difficult process of maturity of the woman protagonist to know the truth about herself and her family. Thanks to the gemelar structures, based on the myth about twins, the ritual of delusion, appropriate for every Jacob’s women protagonists and complicated emotional relationships typical mostly for women were clarified.