The (un)existing photography or body and memory in The lover, by Marguerite Duras

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze the relationship between body and memory in O Amante(1984), by French screenwriter, filmmaker and playwright Marguerite Duras, considered here the author’s autofictional work. For the theoretical-critical discussions about autofiction, the body, and the memory, the approach is based, especifically, on Serge Doubrovsky (2014), Anna Faedrich (2015), Michel Foucault (1983), Philippe Lejeune (1975), Jeanne Marie Gagnebin (2006), Jean-Yves Leloup (2015) e Paul Ricoeur (2000). Thus, itis concluded that, in the Durasian narrative, the body works as a repository of memory (including forgetting and remembering), especially, concerning the narrator's confrontational relations with her family members, recurrently found in her books. Furthermore, this body can be understood as a referent that associates narrator-character with the author, in the autofictional context.