Pan-Art Pedagogy. Theory & Practice Philology. Theory & Practice Manuscript

Archive of Scientific Articles

ISSUE:    Philology. Theory & Practice. 2026. Volume 19. Issue 8
COLLECTION:    Foreign Literature

All issues

License Agreement on scientific materials use.

Non-own" speech about oneself: another's word in the autobiographical writing of Nathalie Sarraute and Annie Ernaux

Elizaveta Vladimirovna Chadova
Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University


Submitted: August 31, 2026
Abstract. The aim of the research is to determine how verbatim quoted speech of others becomes, in the autobiographical prose of Nathalie Sarraute and Annie Ernaux, a means of constructing an autobiographical subject lacking trust in the classical tradition of self-narrative. The material comprised Sarraute's novella "Childhood" and Ernaux's novels "A Man's Place" and "A Woman's Story", in which key episodes are organized around verbatim preserved remarks of parents and relatives. The appeal to another's word is motivated, according to the research hypothesis, by a distrust of the classical autobiographical tradition, which is common to both writers. The scientific novelty lies in the fact that, for the first time, a systematic comparison of Sarraute's and Ernaux's prose is undertaken from the perspective of working with another's speech, whereas in existing studies this parallel has only been outlined. In Sarraute's work, a remark triggers a tropism, and this function is for the first time linked by us to the dialogic structure of the narrative, in which a second instance verifies the authenticity of the memory. In Ernaux's work, the remarks contain a reflection of the heroine's social environment and her strategies for working with family history (in particular, the impersonal style), which are explored for the first time from the perspective of changes from the novel "A Man's Place" to the novel "A Woman's Story". As a result, it was established that the rejection of classical autobiography turns out to be not a refusal of the process of remembering as such, but changes within it. The autobiographical subject is created not through the narrator's personal story about themselves, but through the "non-own" speech of loved ones.
Key words and phrases:
чужое слово в художественной прозе
автобиографический субъект
автобиографический пакт
тропизмы Натали Саррот
безличный стиль Анни Эрно
another's word in fiction
autobiographical subject
autobiographical pact
Nathalie Sarraute's tropisms
Annie Ernaux's impersonal style
Reader Open the whole article in PDF format. Free PDF-files viewer can be downloaded here.
References:
  1. Бахтин М. М. Проблемы поэтики Достоевского. М.: Советский писатель, 1963.
  2. Косова Ю. А., Пономаренко Е. Б., Сиари Ж. Личное и социальное в автобиографическом письме Анни Эрно // Вестник Российского университета дружбы народов. Серия: Литературоведение, журналистика. 2020. № 1. https://doi.org/10.22363/2312-9220-2020-25-1-111-130
  3. Левина-Паркер М. Введение в самосочинение: autofiction // Новое литературное обозрение. 2010. № 103.
  4. Boulaghzalate H. Autobiography and fiction: the case of Enfance by Nathalie Sarraute // 452ºF: Electronic Journal of Theory of Literature and Comparative Literature. 2009. № 1.
  5. Colonna V. L’Autofiction. Essai sur la fictionalisation de soi en littérature: thèse sous la dir. de G. Genette. P., 1989.
  6. Fauchereau S., Ristat J. Conversations avec Nathalie Sarraute // Digraphe. 1984. № 32: “Aujourd'hui Nathalie Sarraute”.
  7. Jefferson A. Annie Ernaux: future prospects and the politics of time // French Cultural Studies. 2024. Vol. 35. № 1. https://doi.org/10.1177/09571558231214674
  8. Lecarme J., Lecarme-Tabone É. L'autobiographie. P.: A. Colin, 1997.
  9. Lejeune Ph. Le pacte autobiographique. P.: Seuil, 1975.
  10. Nevin M. Punctuated Lives: Abortion, Ellipses, and Parentheses in Annie Ernaux's L'événement (2000) and Line Papin's Une vie possible (2022) // L'Esprit Créateur. 2024. Vol. 64. № 3.
  11. Sirvent Ramos Á. Le poids des mots dans l'oeuvre auto-socio-biographique d'Annie Ernaux // Thélème. Revista Complutense de Estudios Franceses. 2024. Vol. 39. № 2. https://doi.org/10.5209/thel.95288
  12. Sirvent Ramos Á. Nathalie Sarraute. La poética de lo interior // Quimera. Revista de Literatura. 2000. № 190.
All issues


© 2006-2025 GRAMOTA Publishing