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- Title
Déplacements dans Sophie's Choice de William Styron : Du texte de la valeur à la valeur du texte.
- Authors
Thomières, Daniel
- Abstract
The paper is an interrogation of what the value of literary texts could consist in. My starting point is an analysis of William Styron’s novel Sophie’s Choice in which the question of Auschwitz as well as that of slavery in 19th century America are addressed. The book explicitly offers readers several theories of value. Can we move from definitions of value found inside the text to a conceptual understanding of the value of a text? I offer a number of hypotheses that are bound up with the notion of choice. Our problem is thus: how can we effect choices with the fullest perception of their implications? It should be clear from what precedes that reading, re-reading and interpreting a literary text is a activity inextricably linked to the deepest levels of our identity. I accordingly propose that literary theory ought to incorporate both ethical and pragmatic considerations.
- Subjects
SOPHIE'S Choice (Book : Styron); STYRON, William, 1925-2006; CHOICE (Psychology) in literature; LITERARY theory; SLAVERY in literature; CONCENTRATION camps in literature
- Publication
Canadian Review of American Studies, 2011, Vol 41, Issue 3, p325
- ISSN
0007-7720
- Publication type
Literary Criticism