The thesis analyses the child's perspective in the literary works of the holocaust literature - the novel The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski, the short story Děti (Children) by Arnošt Lustig and the piece Noc (Night) by Elie Wiesel. We assume that the child's perspective is significant and totally different from the perspective of the adult narrator. The goal of the thesis is to define the characteristic elements in the narrative. First and foremost we seek to analyze the elements in the language, style and motifs of the texts. We also want to define what kinds of literary works are suitable to be denominated as literature written through the child's eyes. We divide the works into several groups according to the fact if the book is a fiction or a memoir. The main differences in using the child's perspective are between these two groups of literary works. In the thesis we first describe the holocaust as a historical event and then we go on with the description of the holocaust literature. In the other parts of the thesis we analyze the literary works mentioned above.

The approach I have chosen for my study is to analyse the narrative techniques in Wiesel's fiction, with particular emphasis on the role of the narrator and listener in the narratives. This will not only highlight aspects of his authorial strategy involving the reader's response to various dimensions of the Holocaust, but will allow an appraisal of the literary merit of Wiesel's novels. The hushed reverence that tends to accompany allusions to Auschwitz and its literature has impeded certain theoretical investigations, with the result that most critical studies undertaken on Wiesel's works have dealt predominantly with themes and content rather than with form. A narrative approach, however, while it accounts for themes, does so within the narrative process of the work. Form and content are examined as interwoven entities in the particular context of an individual work. My decision to adopt this pursuit is based on the conviction that Wiesel's fiction is a significant contribution to the literature of testimony, not only because of its subject matter, but also because of the way in which his narrators unfold their stories with words suspended by silence in the text. The paradox of the mute narrator, the title of my study, is intended to convey the paradoxical quality of Wiesel's fiction and to show how silence, which is manifested in the themes of his work, is concretized by his strategy of entrusting the transmission of the tale to narrators, who, for various reasons have been silenced. A mute by definition cannot emit an articulate sound. A narrator, on the other hand, is a storyteller who is reliant on verbal articulation for communication. This contradiction in terms is dramatized in the novels and is symptomatic of the dilemma of Wiesel's narrators who are compelled to bear testimony through their silence. In my study of Wiesel's fiction, I will follow the chronological sequence in which the novels were written, although I will not be using a developmental approach, except to point out that the trilogy which marks the beginning of his exploration into narrative strategies, and The Testament, the last book I will be dealing with, are a culmination of his previous fictional techniques. While a developmental analysis of his fiction, particularly from a thematic point of view, enables the reader to gain insight into his background, which is important in a comprehensive study of his works, I feel that this avenue of investigation has been competently dealt with by other critics. Ellen Fine's Legacy of Night, one of the first book-length studies of Wiesel, puts forward a convincing argument for examining his fiction in chronological sequence as a kind of serialized journey from being a witness in l'univers concentrationnaire to bearing - witness in a post-Holocaust world. Furthermore, it is possible to trace the direction Wiesel's fiction follows, as in each book the seeds are sown for new ideas which are expanded upon in subsequent books. My discussion, however, will deal with the narrative process of each novel as an individual work in its own particular context. Apart from the trilogy which is examined in one chapter, and The Testament which serves as a conclusion to the study, I have not used cross references to Wiesel's other fiction when analysing specific books. Moreover, I have deliberately avoided including Wiesel's comments on his works and references to them in his essays, interviews and non-fiction writing. The reason for this approach is that I consider each novel to be a separate narrative work which merits an interpretative response that is independent of the comparative criteria that has up to now influenced the assessment of his fiction. (Introduction, p. 12-14)

This thesis explores the implications of bearing witness as testimony, and the recuperation of community and identity in the wake of exile. Through a close reading of Elie Wiesel’s The Time of the Uprooted, alongside the theories of Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Nancy (among others), I argue that a True Testimony cannot exist, and yet despite this fact, there is a necessity to bear witness in the face of the Other. The realization suggests an imperative of a different order—one that steps back from the very notion of truth, to instead accept the impossibility of truth in any act of witnessing. By comparing Wiesel’s metaphysical framework to post-structural philosophies, I am able to blur the lines between an exile’s metaphysical feelings of isolation and strangeness from both others and themselves to the effects of recognizing and accepting that all language is différance.

La présente thèse vise à revisiter la question de l’indicible et à explorer davantage le lien assez problématique entre fiction et témoignage dans la littérature de la Shoah. À travers l’analyse principale des œuvres d’Elie Wiesel, La nuit et Le crépuscule, au loin, et l’analyse des œuvres d’Imre Kertész, Être sans destin et Le chercheur de traces, nous tenterons d’arriver à une définition renouvelée du témoignage littéraire et de l’attestation testimoniale qui comprend le factuel ainsi que le fictionnel. D’ailleurs, notre propos dans cette thèse est de montrer, contrairement à l’idée commune de l’indicible, la manière dont l’expérience de la Shoah se dit à travers la littérature. Ces écrivains ne communiquent pas l’événement de la manière la plus transparente et directe possible, mais se servent de différentes stratégies narratives afin de transmettre l’expérience de la Shoah. Les œuvres de Wiesel et de Kertész font preuve d’un discours hésitant et incertain qui illustre un doute dans la perception du réel de la Shoah décrite par le narrateur. Ce travail a donc pour but d’explorer les modalités de fragilisation du rapport véridictoire du témoignage et d’offrir, à travers l’analyse des œuvres à l’étude, des exemples particuliers de cette distance du témoignage par rapport à la vérité historique. Le doute sera l’exemple le plus avancé de la question de la vérité dans le témoignage qui se déplace de la vérité historique vers une vérité testimoniale. Nous verrons avec l’analyse du doute que les textes à l’étude de Wiesel et de Kertész constituent moins un témoignage de la réalité vécue qu’un témoignage du doute de la réalité perçue. / This thesis revisits the debates concerning the unspeakable and explores the problematic relation between fiction and testimony in Holocaust Literature. The literary analysis of the works written by Elie Wiesel, La nuit and Le crépuscule, au loin, and by Imre Kertész, Être sans destin and Le chercheur de traces, brings to light a renewed definition of literary testimony and of bearing witness which includes factual and fictional elements. Furthermore, the main purpose of this thesis is to demonstrate that the horrific experiences of the Holocaust can in fact be effectively transmitted and brought to life through literature, contrary to common notion of the unspeakable. These writers do not speak of the Holocaust in the most transparent and direct way, rather different narrative strategies to represent the Holocaust are put to use. The narrative works of Wiesel and Kertész reveal a hesitation and an uncertainty that illustrates the presence of doubt related to the perceived reality of the Holocaust. The objective of this study is to explore the different ways in which the rapport between testimony and truth are weakened and to provide specific examples to demonstrate the distance of testimony from truth. Doubt is seen as the most prominent example in revealing how the obligation of truth in testimony is fading. This analysis of doubt will illustrate how these narratives are much less testimonies of the lived reality rather testimonies expressing doubt of the perceived reality.