프랑수아 모리악의 작품을 통해 본 단독자

Abstract

François Mauriac was an eminent psychological novelist who represented the French literature of the early and mid-20th century. At the same time, he was one of the most resistant intellectuals of the time who strongly fought against the ideology of war and violence. Mostly taking place in a bourgeois family in the Southern region of France, Mauriac's works seem at first disconnected from the pain of the era. In fact, however, it turns out to be the opposite. Contrary to the first appearance they give out, Mauriac's works protest against the violence perpetrated by groups on individuals: the collective logic that subjugates the individuals and destroys their particularities. This is one of the reasons why most of his works have characters equivalent to "monsters," who are often subject to the collective violence because they are not close to the collective logic. However, Mauriac doesn't end up by criticizing the society infected by totalitarianism through such characters. Taking a step forward, he seeks to overcome the violence in their relations with the others. Analyzing this process in depth is the aim of this study. In this study, we put particular focus on individuals, or minorities, including Louis in Le Nœud de vipères, Gradère in Les Anges noirs and Xavier in L'Agneau. They are all poorly-loved ones (les mal-aimés), who refuse the reduction into the group and often fall victims of the violence of groups. In such ways, they discover themselves as naked person free from the form of totality, as what Kierkegaard called "the single individual (Der Einzelne)." They experience a leap from the bottom to the highest point. As the single individuals in the face of the God's blessing, they grow up into imitators of Christ―the ultimate goal of Mauriac's works. They eventually seek to heal the individuals suffering under the blind logic and violence of groups and help reconciliation. At all times and in all societies, it is certain that individuals are to find themselves naked, themselves as they are, breaking the mold of totality pushing and imposing externally-set rules to individuals. Moreover, an experience of becoming a "single individual" seems particularly important for individuals of our time, who live in the era of an extreme materialism―a new collective logic of the 21st century―losing the meaning and purposes of their existence. In this study, we seek the possibility of facing with self as a single individual free from all possessions and social frameworks, facing with the absolute being, and eventually the possibility of transcendence taking place from those encounters. We look forward to a platform provided by this study for an objective analysis of the hidden side of postmodernism, as well as for a serious contemplation on our identity at risk of painful destruction and on the "meaning" of our lives.