The master in his disciple’s eye(s). On learning or ecological education in Les Neuf Consciences du Malfini by Patrick Chamoiseau
The master in his disciple’s eye(s). On learning or ecological education in Les Neuf Consciences du Malfini by Patrick Chamoiseau

Summary/Abstract: Les Neuf Consciences du Malfini by Patrick Chamoiseau is a Bildungsroman centred around pedagogical experience of a disciple, and didactic and pedagogical achievements of a master. The educational process based on careful observation and formative imitation of the master, allows the novice to transcend his predatory impulses to reach the stage of ecological responsibility. Unlike the traditional Bildungsroman in which the master mobilizes some multisensory and multimodal devices to relay knowledge or truth, the novel in question confronts the reader with an archetypal "pedagogical" situation, where the master-disciple relationship is not interpersonal, interactive, voluntary or ritualized. Moreover, a pedagogical bond forms not only between the protagonists of the text, but also between the novel and the reader, its target audience. The paper proposes to approach the educational process and the master-disciple relationship from the point of view of ecocriticism, using semiotic analysis of a character. It is argued that by means of the allegorical account, Chamoiseau criticizes anthropocentrism for being the main cause of ecological degradation and advocates horizontality in the human-nature relationship, as a guarantee of ecological balance.

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