Pour le bien-être du numéro matricule: la vision de l’avenir chez Albert Robida et Rachilde
For the well-being of the administrative number: the vision of the future in Albert Robida and Rachilde’s work

Author(s): Anita Staroń
Subject(s): Theoretical Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, Studies of Literature, French Literature, Philology
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: Robida; Rachilde; speculative fiction; progress; dehumanisation
Summary/Abstract: Albert Robida and Rachilde, while representing different aesthetics and philosophies, meet in a very pessimistic vision of future society, based on their observation of contemporary life. They denounce the dangers of progress which results in society’s leveling and technological development, leading to the detriment of humanist ideas. Nature disappears from this futuristic universe and the individual becomes a cog in the machine of science and technology, closely controlled by the state. Under the pretext of common happiness, individual freedoms disappear. In the name of security, everyone is forced to follow the same lifestyle. Writers at the end of the 19th century thus arrive at findings surprisingly close to the analyses of disciplinary society and «the gardening state», conducted respectively by Michel Foucault and by Zygmunt Bauman.

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