Le monde ouvrier dans les romans de Gérard Mordillat : la vie à court terme
Les Vivants et les morts [The living and the dead] (2004) and Notre part des ténèbres [Our part of darkness] (2008) are two novels where the French novelist Gérard Mordillat describes the precarious life of workers in an era of de-industrialization, at the personnal and professionnal level. The only...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | fra |
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ADR Temporalités
2012-12-01
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| Series: | Temporalités |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/temporalites/2307 |
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| Summary: | Les Vivants et les morts [The living and the dead] (2004) and Notre part des ténèbres [Our part of darkness] (2008) are two novels where the French novelist Gérard Mordillat describes the precarious life of workers in an era of de-industrialization, at the personnal and professionnal level. The only time that workers get for themselves is devoted to sex. Women have a harder time than men, juggling simultaneous jobs. These novels are also about industrial disputes : factories become less competitive, until they are sold off to foreign raiders ; redundancy schemes strike hard. The time of conflicts is the time of strategic games of momentum and patience. It’s also the time of sit-in strikes, or even hostage-taking. These desperate actions are called for by a fate that constrains each individual. Flexible capitalism, as it is described in these novels, sets a great rigidity. The employees are forbidden from imagining their future, they are stuck in a here and now, with no means for enjoying the present. The short-term life of workers in a France of de-industrialization conflicts with a logic of urgency. After Lafargue’s Right for laziness, Mordillat offers the quest for a right to slowness, a slowness that could help avoid short-circuits, violent conflicts, tragic situations, and paradoxically, waste of time. |
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| ISSN: | 1777-9006 2102-5878 |