Existe-t-il un mythe littéraire du forçat ? Peut-on dire que le roman de forçat est un genre voire un sous-genre littéraire ? A ces deux problématiques nous tentons de répondre dans notre thèse. Nous donnons tout d’abord une définition historique, sociale et physiologique du forçat, puis, en nous appuyant sur la notion de « bassin sémantique » établie par Gilbert Durand, nous analysons différents mythes et mythèmes tels que le diable, Napoléon ou encore le surhomme. Ce qui nous amène à la conclusion suivante que le forçat est bien un mythe littéraire. En prenant ensuite comme paradigme le roman de Ponson du Terrail, Le Bagne de Toulon, nous établissons une grille de lecture des thèmes et motifs récurrents – le bagne, l’évasion, la paternité, la poursuite ou encore la vengeance - que l’on peut trouver dans les romans où cette figure apparaît. Nous voyons enfin comment ce personnage est représenté dans la littérature étrangère et les formes qu’il a pu prendre depuis la période classique jusqu’à nos jours, galérien, bagnard et prisonnier. Nous montrons également qu’il a trouvé sa place aussi bien dans le théâtre que le cinéma et qu’il s’est imposé en tant que héros de la paralittérature : polar, science-fiction, western, roman d’aventures, bande-dessinée, etc. Par ailleurs, nous examinons, à travers l’œuvre d’Albert Londres et Henri Charrière, comment le récit de témoignage a contribué à la renaissance du roman de forçat. Le roman de forçat a encore de beaux jours devant lui comme l’illustrent les réécritures d’œuvres célèbres telles que Les Misérables ou Le Comte de Monte Cristo. / Is there such thing as a literary myth about the convict ? Can we say that literature dealing with convicts is a genre or even a sub-genre? These are the two issues we will adress in our thesis. First we give a historical, social and physiological definition of the convict ; the notion of “bassin sémantique” as established by Gilbert Durand, helps us analyse different myths and mythemes, such as the devil, Napoleon or even the superman and this leads us to the conclusion that the convict as a literary myth does exist. Secondly, we use the Bagne de Toulon by Ponson du Terrail as a pattern to discuss the recurrent themes and motives pervading the novels where such a figure appears : penal colony, escape, paternity, pursuit or even revenge. At last ,we consider the way this character is represented in foreign literature and the different forms it has taken since the classical period until to-day, whether it be galley slave, convict or prisoner. We also show that it is also present in other genres such as the theatre or the cinema and that it features prominently in marginal literature : detective novel, science-fiction, western, adventure story, comic strip. Besides, we examine how the accounts of Albert Londres and Henry Charrière contributed to a rebirth of the convict novel for which , as is illustrated by the rewriting of famous works such as les Misérables or The Count of Monte Cristo there are good times ahead .

From the 1820s, forçats were widely portrayed in French culture across a variety of fictional and non-fictional genres. This thesis analyses this ‘convict tradition’, and relates it to the emergence of industrial literature in France, with its resolutely reader-centred approach. It argues that convicts acquired a central cultural importance in the nineteenth century because they embodied a form of transgressive individualism which fascinated bourgeois readers. Convicts functioned as screens onto which readers could project their own forbidden desires. The study analyses canonical novels by Sand, Balzac, Hugo and Zola alongside a large corpus of non-fiction, including biographies, penological or philanthropic texts, physiologies and travel literature. The circulation of stereotypes and stylistic tropes between these different genres shows the constant interaction between mainstream and elite writing, and the influence of literary representations on the perception of criminals, which shaped political decisions and penal policy. The first chapter of the study suggests that convicts gave a face to nineteenth-century concerns about the proliferation of the criminal classes, thereby allowing readers to explore these fears. At the same time, descriptions of crime were a source of scopophilic pleasure, allowing readers to indulge repressed transgressive desires, while partaking in a potentially subversive celebration of carnivalesque disorder. Chapter 2 shows how these dynamics inform Balzac’s writing in his ‘Vautrin cycle’, drawing readers into a game of open secrets and deferred recognition, which mirrors contemporary concerns about urban illegibility and illegitimate social promotion. Chapter 3 explores a competing tradition which portrayed convicts as sublime, betraying the ambiguity of nineteenth-century attitudes to imprisonment, which could be a sign of infamy or of martyrdom. Sublime convicts reassured readers about the human ability to overcome trials, and to attain salvation through spiritual means (ataraxia) or physical resistance (escape). These differing traditions show that narratives tended to be centred upon their readers’ concerns, which may explain why criminals themselves were discouraged from writing. Chapter 4 presents the obstacles to convict self-expression as well as various attempts by inmates to ‘write back’, culminating with Genet’s and Charrière’s subversive reappropriation of literary discourse. Chapter 5 examines the ways in which the interplay between political events, commercial imperatives, literary evolutions (the rise of the detective novel) and new cultural practices like the cinema changed twentieth-century representations of convicts. This thesis analyses a large corpus of understudied material and fills a gap in existing scholarship, but more importantly it uses convicts to explore nineteenth-century reading practices, and to probe cultural fault lines in post-revolutionary French society. Convicts exemplify the ambiguity of nineteenth-century attitudes to social marginality, and highlight the conflicted nature of bourgeois identity. Their portrayal also draws attention to the important structural changes undergone by the literary field from the 1830s onwards, which paved the way for the advent of mass culture in the twentieth century.

Le personnage du forçat est omniprésent dans la littérature française du XIXe et du début du XXe siècle. La représentation du monde des travaux forcés dans les bagnes portuaires et plus tard extra-métropolitains est à la croisée de la représentation plus large de la criminalité au XIXe siècle, selon un développement historique concomitant avec l’expansion coloniale. Les faits divers, ces petits bulletins d’alerte lancés comme une basse continue sur la cité, changent la manière de percevoir la criminalité. Obéissant à une structure particulière, le fait divers va remodeler la représentation littéraire de la criminalité. C’est ici qu’intervient le personnage du forçat. En effet, jouissant d’un statut particulier (mort/vivant/revenant), il offre aux romanciers des « conditions de possibilité » inédites jusque-là dans le monde des lettres. Jean Valjean, Monte-Cristo et Chéri-Bibi, pour ne citer que les plus connus, sont devenus des modèles dans ce qu’on peut appeler le « roman de la chiourme », (sous)-genre qui se développe en France à partir de 1830. Ainsi, Valjean donnera l’archétype du « forçat innocent », le converti miraculé et la réincarnation de Jésus-Christ. Monte-Cristo sera le Vengeur par excellence, dont le parcours donnera le modèle du genre – la vengeance étant un topos inévitable de la littérature populaire du XIXe siècle et jusqu’à nos jours. Chéri-Bibi quant à lui, au début du XXe siècle, incarne un tournant dans l’histoire du genre ; il serait au roman de la chiourme ce que Don Quichotte fut pour le roman de chevalerie : une somme et un dépassement. L’étude que nous proposons, centrée sur la « genèse et la structure » du roman du bagne, est un voyage à rebours dans l’histoire de ce genre qui ne dit pas son nom. / The character of convict is omnipresent in French literature of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The representation of the world of hard labor in metropolitan and colonial prisons is at the crossroads of the broader representation of crime in the nineteenth century, according to a concomitant historical development with colonial expansion. The miscellaneous news, these little newsletters launched continually on the city, change the way of perceiving crime. Obeying a specific structure, this type of news will reshape the literary representation of crime. This is where the character of the convict comes in. Indeed, enjoying a special status (dead/alive/revenant), it offers novelists "conditions of possibility" unseen until then in the world of letters. Jean Valjean, Monte-Cristo and Chéri-Bibi, to name only the well known, have become models in what we can call the "novel of the convicts", literary (sub)-genre which develops in France from 1830 onwards. Thus, Valjean will give the archetype of the "innocent convict", the miraculous convert and the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. Monte-Cristo will be the Avenger par excellence, whose course will be the model of the genre - revenge being an inevitable topos of popular literature of the nineteenth century and until today. As for Chéri-Bibi, at the beginning of the twentieth century, embodies a turning point in the history of gender; it would be to the novel of the convict what Don Quixote was for the chivalric romance: a sum and a surpassing. The study we propose, oriented on the "genesis and structure" of the prison novel, is a reverse journey in history of this literary genre that does not say its name.