The Game in the Novel Hors d’Atteinte? by Emmanuel Carrère: An Answer to Existential Angst? Cover Image

Le jeu dans le roman Hors d’Atteinte ? d’Emmanuel Carrère : une réponse à l’angoisse existentielle ?
The Game in the Novel Hors d’Atteinte? by Emmanuel Carrère: An Answer to Existential Angst?

Author(s): Paméla Baës
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Literary Texts, Fiction, Studies of Literature, Comparative Study of Literature, French Literature, Theory of Literature
Published by: Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II
Keywords: Emmanuel Carrère; chance; ordalic; casino; game; pharmakon

Summary/Abstract: At the casino, Frédérique abandons herself to the roulette wheel, which gives her a protective “out of reach” place. A moment of oblivion, gambling gives her intense vertigo and appears to be a form of abandonment, an act of revolt against the diktats of society. It is also defined as an ordalic practice, meaning that the character relies on chance. As a kind of pharmakon, the game provides a feeling of omnipotence, curbing the heroine’s anguish but also proving to be mortifying. Frédérique, the specular double of an author in the grip of ontological anguish, quickly slips into gambling madness. Is the game really beneficial? Does it have a cathartic effect on the character? Or, on the contrary, is it pure fantasy, an illusion incapable of fulfilling the heroine’s fantasies, except for a brief interlude outside reality?

  • Issue Year: 2023
  • Issue No: 13
  • Page Range: 162-172
  • Page Count: 11
  • Language: French