Department of Modern Foreign Languages

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Browsing Department of Modern Foreign Languages by Author "Biscombe, Nicole"

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    La logique du non-sens
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2017-03) Biscombe, Nicole; Leveel, Eric; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Modern Foreign Languages
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT : Franco-American author, Jonathan Littell, published his first literary work entitled Les Bienveillantes in 2006. The controversial novel which has a “fictional nazi officer” as its protagonist and narrator, who is moreover an intellectual, raises important questions surrounding the nature and the genesis of Evil. Through the narration of the main character the reader is guided towards a “logical” understanding of the Jewish Question and the Final Solution. In this dissertation we primarily enquire about the formulation of this logic and furthermore about the reliability thereof. This study is based on the philosophical conception of the logic of absurdity. The analysis of Les Bienveillantes is centered on questions regarding the reasons for which the genocide of more than 6 million European Jews was possible and for which the unspeakable task of wanting to eradicate an entire people was almost achieved. In this dissertation the questions surrounding guilt and responsibility are also a point of discussion. For this analysis, the concept of the banality of evil developed by Hannah Arendt is the point of departure.