La description dans L'Archipel du chien de Philippe Claudel

Abstract

Since the beginning of the nineteenth century, description has occupied a central position in literary works, especially in realistic and naturalistic novels that succeeded in representing the descriptive style. The latter has become a literary representation that gives the reader accuracy in the described scene. In this study, we highlight of description in Philippe Claudel's novel L'Archipel du chien, and the associative relationship between description and narration by showing the functions of description in the narrative text as well as the author's interesting writing style in organizing descriptive sequences of place and characters. The research adopts an analytical methodology to study description based on the theories of Gerard Genette, Philippe Hamon, Mitterrand H, Vincent Jouve, and Jean-Michel Adam. These theories aim to study the descriptive system and its elements. The study concludes that narration and description are two units that make up the literary text. Their relationship is associative, as every description essentially includes narration, and every narration includes intertwined events that evoke the characters and things that make up the description. The descriptive passage has several functions through which it evokes a tangible reality, often a physical painting.The researcher notices that Claudel's description represents a logical series of coherent pieces with narrative commentary, the aim of which is to give the reader a picture closer to reality to integrate it into the story.