Marguerite Duras and colonialist discourse: an intertextual reading of 'L'Empire français' and 'Un barrage contre le Pacifique'

Waters, J. (2003) Marguerite Duras and colonialist discourse: an intertextual reading of 'L'Empire français' and 'Un barrage contre le Pacifique'. Forum for Modern Language Studies, 39 (3). pp. 254-266. ISSN 1471-6860 doi: 10.1093/fmls/39.3.254

Abstract/Summary

This article examines the intertextual relationship between Marguerite Duras' pro-colonialist, propagandist text, L'Empire français (1943), and her seemingly anti-colonialist novel, Un barrage contre le Pacifique (1950). It explores both the transformative and the emulative uses to which descriptive elements, borrowed from the precursor text, are put in the novel's depictions of colonial Indochina. Going against prevalent critical readings of Barrage, the article highlights the ambivalent and ultimately only partial nature of Duras' apparent ideological volte-face