This thesis explores literary representations in white male discourse of the voices of the racial Other. Tracing a chronological development from colonial to postcolonial texts, it closely analyzes the wider political and ethical implications of these representations in Daniel Defoe’s "Robinson Crusoe", Joseph Conrad’s "Heart of Darkness", Albert Camus’ "L’Étranger" and ‘L’Hôte’, J.M. Coetzee’s "Foe" and "Disgrace", J.M.G. Le Clézio’s "Onitsha" and Cormac McCarthy’s "No Country for Old Men". At the core of my research is the question how can white male writers resist the dominance of Eurocentric consciousness and be a witness to the racial Other and articulate his/her voice without recourse to prejudice and stereotyping. The representation of the Other transitions from the anonymity of slavery in colonial texts to identified and identifiable individuals in postcolonial writings. Through these novels the impact of national Independence, freedom from racial oppression and immigration − all legal expressions of freely articulated voice − can be observed on the traditional colonial power relationship. As a consequence, dominated, silenced voices gradually develop into silent refusals of acquiescence that withhold information. The impact of such resistance is frequently paralleled by a crisis of male identity and the declining stature of the white male protagonists who suffer imprisonment, death, sickness, confusion or defeat, as gestures symbolic of the decline of white patriarchal systems and challenges to accepted concepts of identity, humanity, justice, good and evil. In a globalized world the category of the Other encourages us to think beyond the known and recognize the validity of ideologies that challenge the authority of our own.

The analyses in this thesis explore similarities and differences in Jewish (and later Jewish-Israeli) and British literary texts from the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. The comparison is based on two connections between the two cultures: the first is the shared mythical roots, and the second the spatial and historical connection between the two cultures in relation to (post)colonialism. The research examines literary means that convey and consider alterity, and the manner in which the location of the monstrous Other is indicative of the relationship of the respective imagined community and sovereignty. This investigation focuses on the employment of certain Gothic tropes, specifically the use of the setting as a means of exploring and expressing individual and collective identities. A connection between the British and Jewish cultures surfaces in nineteenth to mid-twentieth century literary use of Gothic elements. Furthermore, the comparative analysis will show that the texts in Hebrew and English examined in this thesis similarly utilise Gothic tropes in order to explore concerns of modernity. This thesis re-establishes the inherent links between the Jewish and British cultures, which manifest in similar use of spatial metaphors and ancient myths for the exploration of the angst modernity. These similarities stem not only from the cultural connection, but are the result of the two nations’ preoccupation with sovereignty at an era when they underwent opposite processes of immigration and colonisation. Both literatures utilise Gothic tropes because the Gothic is a genre that is predominantly engaged with social critique and spatial awareness. The interplay between space, myth, and language is exposed as fundamental for the (re)construction of identities in relation to spatial awareness. These issues continue to be relevant in contemporary discussions of identities.

This project seeks to explore representations of Holocaust perpetrators in literature. Such texts, often rather controversially, seek to undo the myth of “pure evil” that surrounds the Holocaust and to reconstruct the perpetrator in more “human” terms. Accordingly, significant questions of “how” and “why” are centralised and explored, providing fertile ground for examinations of the intersections between ethics, literature and history, and enabling ongoing discussions about the characteristics and obligations of perpetrator literature as a whole. Of central concern, these humanising discourses place emphasis on the contextual or situational factors that led up to the genocide. Following these issues through to their logical conclusion, this project takes the question of determinism seriously. This is not to suggest that it disavows individual responsibility, merely that it engages fully with the philosophical problems that are invoked through allusions to external influences, especially as they relate to ideas of contingency. A significant consequence of these discussions is the impact that they have on the reader. That is because, since situational aspects are featured so heavily in these narratives, questions are raised about his or her own capacity for wrongdoing. Consequently, the reader is drawn into the narrative as a potential perpetrator. The tensions that this creates constitutes the second major focus of this work. Ultimately, I hope to expose the challenges that face the reader when they encounter perpetrator narratives, and the ways in which these tensions impact upon our understandings of these figures, and of the Holocaust more generally. In order to provide a more comprehensive overview this project makes use of a large number (in excess of sixty) primary sources, examining both fictional and non-fictional accounts. My aim is not to offer close literary analyses of each of the texts under consideration but, rather, to trace paradigms across the full spectrum of perpetrator literature. In this way, I hope to contribute to the growing body of literature that engages with this topic.

La thèse explore les œuvres de Blaise Cendrars, de Victor Segalen et d’Albert Londres sous l’angle de « l’éclat du voyage » et se propose d’analyser les effets produits par la présence du voyage sur un plan diégétique, métadiégétique et stylistique. Chez ces trois auteurs, la notion de voyage dépasse en effet sa vocation thématique pour se faire véritable matière à travailler le langage, le texte et atteindre la sphère de la littérarité en exerçant sur le texte une menace d’éclatement. Le texte affecté par le voyage, loin d’être mis en péril, s’inscrit ainsi dans une modernité littéraire : en prenant le risque, par le détour du voyage, d’une écriture déformant, re-formant, re-définissant la littérature, les trois œuvres examinées illuminent quelques chemins de traverse dans lesquels s’engagent œuvres et critiques contemporaines. Cette étude interroge les premiers écrits de Cendrars (1912-1938) en explorant par quelles voies la présence conjointe du motif du voyage et de l’éclatement conduit à la création d’une représentation fractale du monde. La mise en évidence de trajectoires chaotiques des personnages cendrarsiens au cœur d’un monde ontologiquement fracturé permet l’édification textuelle d’une « anarchitecture » poétique et moderne. L’examen du cycle polynésien de Segalen met en évidence la présence du voyage comme le résultat d’un écart désirant, véritable menace de déchirure entre l’ici et l’ailleurs, soi et l’autre, soi et soi. Cet écart aboutit, à travers une présence textuelle, à la formation d’une poétique littéraire de la diffraction, poussant ainsi l’œuvre aux limites d’un hors-littérature. Enfin, à travers l’étude des reportages d’Albert Londres, la thèse montre comment l’écriture du voyage trouve un regain de force par le détour du reportage.