چکیده:
Le réalisme magique qui est l’un des styles narratifs les plus adoptés par les auteurs post-modernes, examine la rupture de l’ordre reconnu et l’irruption de l’inadmissible au sein de la réalité quotidienne. Amaryll Chanady dans son livre intitulé Magical realism and the fantastic: Resolved versus unresolved antinomy estime que le réalisme magique est un moyen de subvertir les vérités établies par l’imaginaire en présentant une autre image du monde dans lequel nous vivons. En créant des situations quotidiennes et habituelles les auteurs présentent le surnaturel et l’imaginaire comme acceptables et vraisemblables. Dans cet article, nous concentrerons notre analyse sur La Sorcière, le roman de Marie NDiaye, qui montre de manière saisissante des particularités du réalisme magique. Dans La Sorcière NDiaye utilise le réalisme magique pour tracer la vie d’une famille sorcière et présenter à travers cette famille un portrait pessimiste des conditions de vie d'une classe sociale en France. Nous chercherons à comprendre, comment cohabitent deux cadres de référence réaliste et magique dans ce roman grâce à ce mode narratif et quels objectifs vise l’écrivain en choisissant ce mode d’écriture.
ريالیسم جادویی یکی از رایجترین شیوههای روایت در میان نویسندگان پست مدرن است که به نوعی انفکاک از واقعیتهای روزمره و اشنا و ورود امری ناپذیرفتنی در زندگی معمول را اشکار میکند. از نظر اماریل شندی ريالیسم جادویی سبکی است که واقعیت را با نوعی وهمالودگی درهم میامیزد و جلوهای متفاوت از دنیا را برای خواننده به تصویر میکشد. نویسندگان با خلق موقعیتهای عادی و روزمره، رویدادهای فراطبیعی و تخیلی را برای خواننده به شیوهای قابل قبول و قابل باور روایت میکنند. رمان جادوگر اثر ماری ایندیای که در این مقاله مورد مطالعه قرار گرفته متنی است که مولفههای ريالیسم جادویی را به خوبی به تصویر کشیده است. در جادوگر ایندیای با بهرهگیری از ريالیسم جادویی زندگی خانوادهای جادوگر را ترسیم میکند و از طریق این خانواده تصویری بدبینانه از شرایط زندگی طبقههای مختلف اجتماعی در فرانسه ارايه میدهد. در مقاله حاضر میبینیم چطور نویسنده با استفاده از این شیوه روایت دو ساختار جادو و واقعیت را در کنار هم قرار داده است و با بهرهگیری از این فضای غریب در داستان واقعیتهای جامعه را نقد میکند
Magical realism, which is one of the narrative styles most adopted by postmodern
authors, examines the breakdown of the recognized order and the eruption of the inadmissible
into everyday reality. Amaryll Chanady, in Magical realism and the fantastic: Resolved versus
unresolved antinomy (1985), asserts that magical realism is a way of undermining the established truths
by the imaginary and by presenting another picture of the world in which we live. Magical realism is
the art of manifesting dreaminess and strangeness within a realistic context or in a familiar and
recognizable universe. It presents a particular and unique world in which the coexistence of the natural
and the supernatural is constant, and supernatural events are integrated into the reality of daily life. In
other words, magical realism presents a fictitious but daily reality, interspersed with extraordinary or
unreal events. In this regard, by creating every day and habitual situations, the authors present the
supernatural and the imaginary as acceptable and plausible. Although the phenomenon is not very recent,
magical realism is a narrative style most adopted by contemporary authors.
Magical realism is brilliantly illustrated by the fiction of Marie Ndiaye in its sense of remoteness and
strangeness; her books are distinguished by their hybrid character and co-presence of realism and
fantasy. Her tales include sorcery, metamorphoses, doubles, and ghosts. NDiaye usually tells her stories
from the viewpoint of an individual, generally, a woman whose story is a tale of identity, and who is
called upon to pass a series of difficult trials. In particular, her heroines travel through different places,
each in search of something (family, home, community, self, belonging); more, the protagonists struggle
with the feeling of marginalization due to an implicit and obscure failure. Exclusion and wandering are
integral parts of NDiaye's fantastic tales. The most recurring theme in which the fantastic is applied by
NDiaye's in her texts is that of the contemporary family: the familiar physical atmosphere has become
strange and the spaces between the members have become worrying. NDiaye's fictions tend to portray
fantastic and unspeakable characters who find no place in their families or the social, cultural, or political
environment because they turn out to be undesirable and fundamentally unintelligible to everyone.
This supernatural ambiance and the fusion of fantasy and real elements are present in most of
NDiaye's novels. This is the case with La Sorciere (1996), her sixth novel, where the writer takes
advantage of her technique to stage the issue of alienation and the problems faced by an individual who
finds himself marginalized in society for reasons that are far beyond his understanding and control. In
La Sorciere NDiaye has managed to portray the life of a witch of modern times, a woman, still young,
commonplace, and without ambition who would be satisfied with a daily life without surprise or relief.
Magical Realism in La Sorciere by Marie NDiaye*
Jaleh KAHNAMOUI POUR**/Behnaz KHAJAVI***
68 | Recherches en Langue et Litterature Francaises, Vol 14, Issue 25, Spring & Summer 2020
68
NDiaye recounts the dreary and monotonous life of Lucie, a witch of a long lineage but with very
limited powers. The author describes a series of magical feats ranging from the weak visionary powers
of Lucie, the protagonist, who is only able to keep up with the presence of other family members in
other places, to the startling powers of her daughters who can turn into a crow and her mother who turns
her ex-husband into a snail.
Using fantastic elements, this novel takes us to a soulless and callous world, where monotony and
absurdity reign. Through her heroine, the author paints a pessimistic portrait of the living conditions of
a certain social class in France. Thus, under a supernatural exterior, La Sorciere is a very realistic and
contemporary novel and makes us fall into a disturbing and uncertain world. Paradoxically, the sorcery
draws the story into the fantastic, to better reflect everyday life and to address deeper issues such as
family, abandonment, and loneliness. La Sorciere NDiaye features a feminine fantasy and this fantastic
effect is a way to show problems and emotions that often cannot be distinguished by the ordinary
language. In fact, magical realism here does not solve these problems but serves to amplify them and
exaggerate their importance.
La Sorciere uses fantastic elements, both in the gift of sorcery passed on by female members of
Lucie's family as well in the plot structure, which also conforms to dreamlike logic and includes sudden
appearances, transformations, and sorcery. Yet the novel presents a supernatural imagination within a
realistic main frame of reference. The novel's fantastic universe is rooted in brutal realism, notably in
the staging of betrayals and the insipidity of everyday life in contemporary French provinces. Therefore,
the sorcery in the novel works more as a metaphor and a means to explore recurring themes in NDiaye's
work: women's issues in the family and society, abandonment, cruelty, family relationships, heritage
and life in the French provinces.
In this paper, we try to understand how NDiaye uses magical realism in her novel, to portray the
ambiguity of relationships within the family, which is supposed to be the most intimate place for an
individual. To do this, we use what Amaryll Chanady offers in her contribution to the analysis of magical
realism; that is in magical realism, it is a question of two codes, either the real (the natural) or the
supernatural. Any strange or extraordinary event or anything that does not participate in the logical order
of the reader's reality is classified as supernatural. The real underlies the second code. These are the
events that participate in the reader's reality, where the similarity of the external world is metonymically
taken up by the text. Of course, this notion requires further explanation, especially since it is composed
of two opposite terms: realism and magic. However, to explain it, we rely on the analytical method of
Amaryll Chanady, and we try to discover and analyze the elements that are essential in the design of
magical realistic work, namely "The presence of two levels of reality - the natural and the supernatural
in the text; the unresolved antinomy between these two levels in the narrative; authorial reluctance"
(Chanady, 1985, 95).
The coexistence of elements from traditionally incompatible codes, in other words, the fusion of
realism and fantasy, is probably the most remarkable characteristic of magical realism fiction. In
addition, wonderful events are presented as normal and accustomed things that every day happen to
ordinary people. These are stories of people like us taking care of what we do every day, but with a little
bit of magic added to it. Though initially, it may sound like other genres, like fantasy, what makes
magical realism so different is that these magical elements are presented as normal for the characters in
these stories. And finally, authorial reluctance is one of the fundamental principles of magical realism
which refers to the silence of the writer or narrator in the explanation of magic or the description of
supernatural events. The characters, especially the narrator, might not know what is going on, and neither
could the reader. There is authorial reluctance when an author withholds information from the reader to
make the circumstances deliberately vague and to reinforce the sense of the fantastic in the story. The
characters - and therefore the readers - are kept in the dark, so that there is an ever-present sense of
mystery as events unfold.
Extended abstract : Magical Realism in La Sorciere by Marie NDiaye…| 69
Based on these theoretical data, in this paper, we attempt to verify how two realistic and magical
frames of reference coexist in La Sorciere thanks to this narrative mode and the objectives, which the
author aims by choosing this mode of writing. Combining realism and fantasy elements, the novelist
uses magical realism as an important and useful tool for expressing her thoughts and telling her stories.