Malraux’s Hope: Allegory and the Voices of Silence

Malraux’s Hope: Allegory and the Voices of Silence

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Department

English & Comparative Literature Department

Description

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

Malraux’s Hope: Allegory and the Voices of Silence

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