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- Title
The ethics of aesthetics in trauma fiction: memory, guilt and responsibility in Louise L. Lambrichs's Journal d'Hannah.
- Authors
Rye, Gill
- Abstract
This article engages with two themes which are key to this special issue: (i) the relations between the individual and history, between the private and the public in relation to traumatic events; and (ii) the ethics and aesthetics of testimony and bearing witness, and the role of fiction in this respect. These themes are addressed through analysis of Louise L. Lambrichs's Journal d'Hannah, a fascinating novel, in diary format, about the psychological effects of an abortion, set against the backdrop of the Holocaust. The Jewish woman who reluctantly aborts her second child is in her own mind at once victim, perpetrator and survivor, and consumed by guilt. First, the article considers the mirroring structure of the novel, which arguably invites a comparison between the trauma of the abortion and the trauma of the Holocaust. It then examines the historical context of the setting and the writing of the novel. Finally, it identifies the ethical impetus of the text in its treatment of guilt and responsibility, with particular regard to contemporary France's troubled relationship with its wartime past.
- Subjects
FRANCE; LAMBRICHS, Louise L.; JOURNAL d'Hannah (Book); AESTHETICS in literature; MEMORY in literature; GUILT in literature; RESPONSIBILITY in literature; FICTION
- Publication
Journal of Romance Studies, 2009, Vol 9, Issue 3, p48
- ISSN
1473-3536
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.3828/jrs.9.3.48