Doctoral Dissertations
Date of Award
5-2009
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy
Major
Modern Foreign Languages
Major Professor
John B. Romeiser
Abstract
The imprint that the Second World War has left on our global civilization is one that we are still trying to decipher. Les Années noires (The Dark Years or the Nazi Occupation) are still a murky part of France's national history as well as the history of the Second World War. Women's voices have often been left out of a traditionally male dominated body of wartime writings, though their experiences are an integral part of that history and merit further study. Focusing on the discourses found in women's testimonial voices found in French texts about les Années noires will help illuminate our perceptions of this historical period. Irène Némirovsky, Marguerite Duras and Charlotte Delbo bear witness to some of the tragedies of their epoque and their testimonial voices help to elucidate this shadowy past by revealing often overlooked and unnoticed particularities of women's experiences.Literature concretizes these women's experiences, rendering them forever accessible to readers who, in essence, are implicated in the witnessing process. The project presents a five chapter study beginning with an introduction that sets forth the theoretical framework. The second chapter focuses on a fictional novel by Irène Némirovsky, Suite française, which provides an eyewitness account of the Exodus from Paris in June 1940. Her novel exposes the deep social and political divisions in French society at that time and offers a cold-hearted yet truthful depiction of the beginning of life under the Occupation. The third chapter will look into journal/mémoire writing as seen in La Douleur by Marguerite Duras, whose narrative voice testifies about collaboration, resistance, deportation, victimization, reintegration and the profound psychological pain of les Années noires.The following chapter explores Charlotte Delbo's Mesure de nos jours, in which the author captures the struggle to 'return' to life that she and others experienced. Delbo's realistic and frank writing style limits the extermination camp experience and life after it to what it was, unthinkable and inexplicable. The final chapter focuses on the implications these voices carry for our current and future lives. This study is important to projecting these often unheard voices for if we continue not to hear them, the "Dark years" will remain forever grey.
Recommended Citation
Weems, Julia Allison Hope, "Illuminating les Années noires through the testimonial voices of Irène Némirovsky, Marguerite Duras, and Charlotte Delbo. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2009.
https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/6032