Ce mémoire en création littéraire se compose de deux parties. La première, un roman intitulé « Dieu reconnaîtra les seins », suit les aventures de Caroline, jeune femme dans la trentaine qui, ayant subi une ablation des seins, voit sa vie basculer alors qu'elle tente de trouver une solution médico-esthétique à sa situation. Le ton enjoué du roman permet d'aborder l'aspect tragique de la vie de Caroline de façon légère. Il permet également, sous forme d'humour ironique, absurde ou même noir, de soulever des thèmes universels tels que l'amour, la solitude, le désespoir, la pauvreté et la mort. Ainsi porté, le récit évolue vers une vision tant impitoyable que bienveillante de l'humain qui, à travers les événements à la fois médiocres et grandioses de la vie de Caroline, trouve sa place dans un univers pourtant hostile. La deuxième partie du mémoire se consacre à l'étude de l'humour dans « Au bonheur des ogres » de Daniel Pennac, et plus particulièrement, à l'humour inséré entre parenthèses. Pennac utilise abondamment ce procédé humoristique, créant ainsi un récit polyphonique où plusieurs niveaux narratifs entrent en dialogue. Trois types d'humour présents dans les parenthèses sont analysés, à savoir l'humour noir, l'humour absurde et l'ironie. Cet essai fait donc écho au roman en ce qu'il se penche sur l'humour et l'ironie comme procédés littéraires. / This thesis in creative writing is composed of two parts. The first one, a novel entitled Dieu reconnaîtra les “seins”, follows the adventures of a young woman in her thirties named Caroline who, having had her breasts surgically removed, sees her life plunge into chaos as she tries to find a cosmetic and medical solution to her situation. The light tone of the novel allows for an humorous look at the tragic cirucumstances Caroline finds herself in. Following the trials and tribulations of her life, the story touches on such universal themes as love, loneliness, hopelessness, poverty and death, and evolves toward a vision of humanity that is both merciless and benevolent. The second part of the thesis is an study of humour in Daniel Pennac's Au bonheur des ogres, and more specifically, the use of parentheses as a humoristic device. Pennac frequently uses parentheses as a way to create humour, thus building a polyphonic narrative in which various levels of discourse communicate with each other. Three types of humour are present within parentheses: black humour, absurdist humour and irony. As such, the essay echoes the novel in that it looks at humour and irony in literature.

Les deux premiers romans de Michel Folco, Dieu et nous seuls pouvons (1991) et Un loup est un loup (1995), ont reçu un très bon accueil du public et de la presse, mais ont été pratiquement ignorés par la critique universitaire. Ces romans historiques méritent pourtant qu’on les étudie. Cet admirateur de Dumas propose des romans d’aventures d’inspiration historique, qui en apparence sont construits dans la plus pure tradition du genre. Or, les textes sont plus complexes qu’il n’y paraît : ils ont absorbé un intertexte fort et multiple, incorporé des fantasmatiques sociales inquiétantes, offrent une représentation originale du rapport entre l’être humain et la nature. Centrés autour des figures du bourreau et du loup, ils présentent un traitement singulier de ces symboles du mal et remettent en question la haine ancestrale dont ils sont l’objet. Dans un univers romanesque hanté par le motif de la vengeance, c’est l’ensemble de la société qui est représentée comme violente, intolérante et cruelle. La notion de mal est questionnée, redéfinie, déplacée. C’est ce déplacement qui est l’objet de ce mémoire, lequel se donne pour but de montrer comment les textes travaillent des récits historiques ainsi que des représentations mythiques et religieuses. / The first two novels of Michel Folco, Dieu et nous seuls pouvons (1991) and Un loup est un loup (1995), were well received by the general public and the press, but were largely ignored by the academic community. These historical novels do however deserve our attention. This Dumas admirer proposes adventure novels of historical inspiration which seem to be constructed in the purest form of the genre. Yet the texts are more complex than it appears: they have absorbed a strong and multiple intertext, incorporated disturbing social fantasies and they offer an original narrative of the relationship between Man and Nature. Centered around the characters of the executioner and the wolf, the novels present a unique approach to these symbols of evil and question the ancestral hatred to which they are subjected. In this fictional universe, haunted by vengeance, it is society as a whole that is depicted as violent, intolerant and cruel. The notion of evil is redefined, questioned and distorted. It is this very distortion that is the topic of this thesis, whose purpose is to show how these texts transform historical accounts as well as mythical and religious representations.

This dissertation seeks to identify, contextualize, and explain the achievement of late modernist novelists. Late modernism represents a significant, under-examined chapter in the development of the twentieth-century novel. Unlike the majority of their peers in the decades after modernism’s height, novelists such as Henry Green, Ivy Compton-Burnett, and Elizabeth Bowen—and the best-known, Samuel Beckett—continue to innovate in prose rather than returning to realism. Unlike their predecessors, late modernists move towards doubt, eschewing the sometimes ultimately redemptive ethos of high modernism. They do so without the insistence of later postmodernists, however, or their playful mood. The result is something new, strange, and “in between.” The aims of this study are to specify the nature of late modernist style, place it in its aesthetic and historical context, and explain its significance. Each chapter is a close reading of key works by one writer: each novelist uses different techniques to add to the late modernist aesthetic, but they all move in the same direction. The first chapter explores Henry Green’s work, analyzing the textual omissions and narrative construction that make his novels so evasive. In Compton-Burnett’s case, the focus is on how dialogue creates a constantly shifting moral world in which nothing can be taken for granted. The chapter on Beckett explores repetition, both as a microscopic stylistic tool and an organizing device that prevents the text from reaching conclusion. In examining Bowen, the centre is how her syntax circles continually around various kinds of “nothingness” and self-reflexively suggests ways to explore it. This study arranges late modernist novelists in a new continuum alongside Samuel Beckett, with the result that Beckett seems less a unique genius, and the other late modernist writers seem less eccentric and more profoundly challenging. They all seek ways to go on writing when doing so seems impossible. Late modernists bring something new to the novel. Through the smallest stylistic gestures, their works make and unmake themselves, refusing to allow the reader finality. They avoid the aesthetic and philosophical associations of either consolation or utter uncertainty; late modernists matter by refusing to matter in a familiar way.

This dissertation seeks to identify, contextualize, and explain the achievement of late modernist novelists. Late modernism represents a significant, under-examined chapter in the development of the twentieth-century novel. Unlike the majority of their peers in the decades after modernism’s height, novelists such as Henry Green, Ivy Compton-Burnett, and Elizabeth Bowen—and the best-known, Samuel Beckett—continue to innovate in prose rather than returning to realism. Unlike their predecessors, late modernists move towards doubt, eschewing the sometimes ultimately redemptive ethos of high modernism. They do so without the insistence of later postmodernists, however, or their playful mood. The result is something new, strange, and “in between.” The aims of this study are to specify the nature of late modernist style, place it in its aesthetic and historical context, and explain its significance. Each chapter is a close reading of key works by one writer: each novelist uses different techniques to add to the late modernist aesthetic, but they all move in the same direction. The first chapter explores Henry Green’s work, analyzing the textual omissions and narrative construction that make his novels so evasive. In Compton-Burnett’s case, the focus is on how dialogue creates a constantly shifting moral world in which nothing can be taken for granted. The chapter on Beckett explores repetition, both as a microscopic stylistic tool and an organizing device that prevents the text from reaching conclusion. In examining Bowen, the centre is how her syntax circles continually around various kinds of “nothingness” and self-reflexively suggests ways to explore it. This study arranges late modernist novelists in a new continuum alongside Samuel Beckett, with the result that Beckett seems less a unique genius, and the other late modernist writers seem less eccentric and more profoundly challenging. They all seek ways to go on writing when doing so seems impossible. Late modernists bring something new to the novel. Through the smallest stylistic gestures, their works make and unmake themselves, refusing to allow the reader finality. They avoid the aesthetic and philosophical associations of either consolation or utter uncertainty; late modernists matter by refusing to matter in a familiar way.

L’imbrication de l’écriture et de la photographie sera examinée dans Les années, d’Annie Ernaux, de façon à montrer la tension au cœur du double désir de l’auteure de documenter des moments révolus et de les transmettre à autrui. Seront étudiées, d’un point de vue poétique et esthétique, la mise en œuvre des documents et les modalités d’inscription des souvenirs, lesquels sont généralement présentés sous forme d’images mémorielles. Nous verrons que ces images sont liées à un effet photographique, destiné au lecteur dans le but de partager une mémoire matérielle, intime et collective, s’étalant sur des années. Cet angle d’approche devrait permettre de relire Les années suivant une perspective critique nouvelle, et de contribuer aux recherches portant sur la narration, la trace et la mémoire dans la littérature contemporain. / The interweaving of writing and photography will be examined in Annie Ernaux’s Les années, showing the central tension of the author’s double desire to document past events and pass them on to others. The implement of documents and the engraving modes of memories are generally presented as mental images that will be studied here from a poetic and aesthetic point of view. We will see that those images are linked to a photographic effect, in order to share with the reader an intimate and collective material memory that spreads over many years. This approach would allow a rereading of Les années from a new critical perspective and a contribution to research about narrative, trace and memory in contemporary writing.

Six courts récits, qui peuvent n’en former qu’un, se penchent sur les possibilités de la voix narrative (à la troisième personne, au « je », au « nous », au « tu »). Ils réfléchissent sur l’acte de création comme construction et sur les effets de la narration. Pour preuve, le dernier texte reprend intégralement le premier. Le fantastique surgit au moment de l’hésitation du lecteur devant la nature des faits qui lui sont présentés. C’est avec les différentes instances que composent les destinateurs et les destinataires du récit que ce texte joue. La voix narrative, dans un texte fantastique, a une grande importance et doit créer une tension chez le lecteur, qui n’arrivera pas à trouver une explication pour certains aspects du récit. Le narrateur, souvent au « je », se confond avec un personnage. À l’aide de l’analyse du déroulement de l’intrigue et des procédés narratifs utilisés dans trois nouvelles : La Vénus d’Ille (Mérimée), Apparition (Maupassant), Ligeia (Poe), nous cherchons à montrer le rôle du narrateur dans le texte fantastique. / Six short stories, which can be grouped into one long story, provide different styles for the narrator: a third-person narrative, an ‘’I’’ narrative, a ‘’we’’ narrative, and a ‘’you’’ narrative. This particular text is a reflection about the act of creating as a progressive construction as well as a reflection on the effects of narration. As a concrete proof, the last part is identical to the first one, but having the whole story in mind gives the same text a different meaning. The fantastic mood emerges with the reader’s hesitation of how to interpret the facts that are presented to him. Globally, this text plays with the instances that provide a literary text and the ones that receive it. The narrative in a fantastic text is very important, and has to create tension in the reader, who will not be able to explain certain aspects of the story. Often, the plot is told in the first person, hence merging the narrator with a character, thus creating a double personality. We try to shine the light on the role of the narrator in a fantastic text by analyzing how the plot unravels and which narrative methods are used in three short stories: La Vénus d’Ille (Mérimée), Apparition (Maupassant), and Ligeia (Poe).

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