Stades imaginaires de Barbe bleue par Amélie Nothomb
Stages of the Imaginary in Barbe bleue by Amélie Nothomb

Author(s): Hans Färnlöf
Subject(s): Cultural Essay
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Keywords: Amelie Nothomb; Barbe bleue; imaginary; writing; re-writing; Sartre;
Summary/Abstract: This study explores the notion of the imaginary in Barbe bleue by Nothomb in two complementary ways. Sartre’s phenomenological vision of the imaginary constitutes the methodological fundament for exploring initially the condition for the imaginary to occur. As an act of the individual consciousness to be comprehended by others, the imaginary requires the activation of a common field of reference directed towards the object of representation. It is suggested that this faculty could be described as a conceptual framing of the object. The specific thematic of the imaginary in the narrative (i.e. creation, idealisation, alchemy, liberation, transformation) is then linked to this framing as well as to the discursive mode which structures the story, a mode based on plausible actions taking place in a coherent, contemporary society. The imaginative writing of Nothomb is seen partly as the consequence of this latter choice of composition, with the need to introduce new motifs and to rationally justify the actions, partly as her proper creation of cunning stylistics, which generates the reader’s hermeneutic activity and even engenders the risk of creating an imaginary interpretation of her texts.

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