Ile et désirs de l’interdit dans Le Rivage des Syrtes de Julien Gracq

Abstract

On the adventurous paths that mark Julien Gracq’s fictional worlds, the heroes are often subjected to a spatial displacement. And this occurs, with few exceptions, throughout the different texts, right from their incipit. In the Prix Goncourt awarded novel Le Rivage des Syrtes for example, – a prize Julien Gracq declined – the protagonist’s crossing of the sea of Syrtes to the Island of Vezzano, conveys the same symbolism of a foregoing voyage towards a discovery. This project will allow him to experiment a vision of the forbidden. He breaks away from the everyday life’s triviality in order to finally be able to contemplate “la lumière sortie de la mer.” The island is the place of desire and discovery. The hero’s strife for arriving on the island mimics his process of finding his own identity, by means of the symbolic relation he establishes with the otherness.

Keywords

• voyage
• island
• forbidden
• revelation
• Gracq (Julien)