Malraux’s Hope: Allegory and the Voices of Silence
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Department
English & Comparative Literature Department
Abstract
André Malraux’s novel, La Condition humaine [Man’s Fate], evokes broadly Hegelian expectations concerning the possibility of political action and the dialectical resolution of long-term conflicts. However, this same novel also frustrates these same expectations when it articulates matters of style, art and politics in a Chinese setting. The “world” of the novel is not defined in terms of a unified native tradition, but its international features are historically revealing and socially significant. Moreover, the cultural subtext that underlies the novel’s plot constitutes an index for determining the nature of socio-cultural praxis under difficult conditions. Hence, Malraux’s novel can be shown to interface with cultural history in three distinct ways. First, the major protagonists in the novel embody an ambiguous but important connection with progressive ideology. Second, the cultural differences that figure prominently in the novel provide a material dimension to the network of signs that governs the structure of the work itself. Third, the emergence of “discontinuous” history in the novel complements a sense of narrative fictionality that provides the reader with a socially mediated view of historical transformation.
Publication Date
7-15-2011
Document Type
Book Chapter
Book Title
Asian Literary Voices: From Marginal to Mainstream
Editors
Philip F. Williams
ISBN
978-9089640925
Publisher
Amsterdam University Press
City
Amsterdam
First Page
115
Last Page
128
Series
ICAS Publications Series
Disciplines
East Asian Languages and Societies | English Language and Literature | Other Languages, Societies, and Cultures
Recommended Citation
APA Citation
Melaney, W. D.
(2011).Malraux’s Hope: Allegory and the Voices of Silence. Amsterdam University Press. , 115-128
https://fount.aucegypt.edu/faculty_book_chapters/1178
MLA Citation
Melaney, William Donald
Malraux’s Hope: Allegory and the Voices of Silence. Amsterdam University Press, 2011.pp. 115-128
https://fount.aucegypt.edu/faculty_book_chapters/1178