‘So Proud of our Dead Soldiers’: of Ghosts and men in Jacob’s Room (1922) and Atonement (2001)
Virginia Woolf’s composition of Jacob Flanders from a diversity of angles and her ironic perspective at the “absent” presence of a banal, inconsequential, narcissistic young man proclaim a lifelong refusal to contribute to the fallacies of myth making. Mourning their sacrifice, she declined to eulog...
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| 发表在: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/ebc, |
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| 格式: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| 语言: | Anglais |
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Études britanniques contemporaines
2019
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| 在线阅读: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
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openedition-oai:revues.org:ebc_7215 |
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openedition |
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openedition-oai:revues.org:ebc_7215 https://doi.org/10.4000/ebc.7215 urn:doi:10.4000/ebc.7215 en https://journals.openedition.org/ebc/7215 2019-06-17T02:00:00Z info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess article info:eu-repo/semantics/article urn:handle:20.500.13089/fe9j https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ ‘So Proud of our Dead Soldiers’: of Ghosts and men in Jacob’s Room (1922) and Atonement (2001) Études britanniques contemporaines Presses universitaires de la Méditerranée info:eu-repo/semantics/reference/issn/2271-5444 info:eu-repo/semantics/reference/issn/1168-4917 URI:https://journals.openedition.org/ebc Flora, Luísa Maria Rodrigues Virginia Woolf’s composition of Jacob Flanders from a diversity of angles and her ironic perspective at the “absent” presence of a banal, inconsequential, narcissistic young man proclaim a lifelong refusal to contribute to the fallacies of myth making. Mourning their sacrifice, she declined to eulogize those killed in the First World War and to mould heroes out of the blown bits of men.The writer in Ian McEwan’s 2001 novel creates the character of an innocent, immature young man, Robbie Turner, who is assembled from a succession of drafts and carefully edited revisions. A soldier in the Second World War, the character is cast as a caring man, a compassionate and involuntary hero, only to be eventually reread as an instrument of the novelist’s effort at atonement. His valour is a literary construct, his fictional presence an absence.If the war as history seems beyond the control of the common writer and reader, the war as emotional experience is something that fiction can deal with. The dialogue here established between Woolf and McEwan exposes male, military, heroic myths as fatally anachronistic and explodes the narrative conventions that escort such fallacies while acknowledging their seemingly inescapable attraction. Lest we forget. Virginia Woolf à composé le personnage de Jacob Flanders de divers points de vue et sa perspective ironique vis-à-vis de la présence “absente” de ce jeune homme banal, inconséquent et narcissique affiche son refus permanent de contribuer à la construction fallacieuse du mythe du héros. Même si elle regrette le sacrifice de tous ceux qui ont été tués pendant la première guerre mondiale, elle refuse d’en faire l’éloge et ne se prête jamais à construire, à partir des débris de ces jeunes gens, des personnages de héros.Dans le roman publié par Ian McEwan en 2001, Briony Tallis crée le personnage d’un jeune homme innocent et naïf. Soldat pendant la seconde guerre mondiale, le personnage est conçu comme un homme généreux, dévoué aux autres, un héros malgré lui, pour devenir l’instrument de la tentative d’expiation de la romancière. Sa valeur est celle d’un produit de l’imagination, sa présence fictionnelle est une absence.Si la guerre comme histoire semble être bien exister au-delà du pouvoir de l’écrivain comme du lecteur ordinaire, la fiction peut aborder la guerre comme expérience émotionnelle. Le dialogue entre Woolf et McEwan que propose cet essai dénonce les mythes militaires de l’héroïsme comme patriarcaux et fatalement anachroniques et démonte les conventions narratives qui les accompagnent même si elles semblent garder une certaine séduction. Afin que jamais ces guerres ne soient oubliées. |
| collection |
OpenEdition Journal |
| language |
Anglais |
| format |
Article ou chapitre numérique |
| building |
0/Bibliothèque numérique/ 1/Bibliothèque numérique/OpenEdition Journals/ |
| description |
Virginia Woolf’s composition of Jacob Flanders from a diversity of angles and her ironic perspective at the “absent” presence of a banal, inconsequential, narcissistic young man proclaim a lifelong refusal to contribute to the fallacies of myth making. Mourning their sacrifice, she declined to eulogize those killed in the First World War and to mould heroes out of the blown bits of men.The writer in Ian McEwan’s 2001 novel creates the character of an innocent, immature young man, Robbie Turner, who is assembled from a succession of drafts and carefully edited revisions. A soldier in the Second World War, the character is cast as a caring man, a compassionate and involuntary hero, only to be eventually reread as an instrument of the novelist’s effort at atonement. His valour is a literary construct, his fictional presence an absence.If the war as history seems beyond the control of the common writer and reader, the war as emotional experience is something that fiction can deal with. The dialogue here established between Woolf and McEwan exposes male, military, heroic myths as fatally anachronistic and explodes the narrative conventions that escort such fallacies while acknowledging their seemingly inescapable attraction. Lest we forget. |
| author |
Flora, Luísa Maria Rodrigues |
| spellingShingle |
Flora, Luísa Maria Rodrigues ‘So Proud of our Dead Soldiers’: of Ghosts and men in Jacob’s Room (1922) and Atonement (2001) |
| author_facet |
Flora, Luísa Maria Rodrigues |
| author_sort |
Flora, Luísa Maria Rodrigues |
| title |
‘So Proud of our Dead Soldiers’: of Ghosts and men in Jacob’s Room (1922) and Atonement (2001) |
| title_short |
‘So Proud of our Dead Soldiers’: of Ghosts and men in Jacob’s Room (1922) and Atonement (2001) |
| title_full |
‘So Proud of our Dead Soldiers’: of Ghosts and men in Jacob’s Room (1922) and Atonement (2001) |
| title_fullStr |
‘So Proud of our Dead Soldiers’: of Ghosts and men in Jacob’s Room (1922) and Atonement (2001) |
| title_full_unstemmed |
‘So Proud of our Dead Soldiers’: of Ghosts and men in Jacob’s Room (1922) and Atonement (2001) |
| title_sort |
‘so proud of our dead soldiers’: of ghosts and men in jacob’s room (1922) and atonement (2001) |
| publisher |
Études britanniques contemporaines |
| publishDate |
2019 |
| container_title |
URI:https://journals.openedition.org/ebc |
| url |
https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://doi.org/10.4000/ebc.7215 https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://journals.openedition.org/ebc/7215 |
| _version_ |
1877241592510676992 |