Le voyage aux sites de catastrophe : Marguerite Duras et les conséquences de la guerre

Abstract

World War II features in the background of a number works by Marguerite Duras that represent grief and mourning related to death brought about by war. Her scenario for Alain Resnais’s film Hiroshima mon amour (1959) exemplifies this concern for the emotional consequences of war. Several decades later, La Mort du jeune aviateur anglais reflects a similar theme of war-related grief and violence. In each of these works, the protagonists travel to a location where tragic war events have occurred and where social forms of memorialization exist. Here they come to terms with both general and personal loss. This article explores Marguerite Duras’s depiction of the rapport between travel and grieving, how memorial sites facilitate mourning and how these historical sites become established. Paul Ricoeur’s treatise La Mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli provides us with a definition of grief and guides our comparison of these two works that echo each other. Hiroshima mon amour and La Mort du jeune aviateur anglais together illustrate how a journey to a site of former tragedy can be personally restorative.