Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Program

French

Supervisor

Goldschläger, Alain

Abstract

Since the second half of the twentieth century, representations of the Holocaust in all areas of Art have been on the rise. It is not– as it was right after the end of the war –, about sharing an individual recounting of one’s experience in the death camps, or even about giving an opportunity to the witnesses to tell their story, as it was the case after the Jerusalem’s trials. It is now about a mass of references and motifs, used and transformed with more or less skill in pop culture, not only in Europe (as it occurred right after World War II) but also in North America. However, it seems that any creation linked to the Shoah implies questions of ethics as well as aesthetics, as shown by the rise of the Holo-kitsch trend.

Where lay the difference between Saul Fia by Lazlo Nemes (2015) and The Boy un Stripped pajamas by Mark Herman (2008)? Between Les Bienveillantes (The kindly Ones, Jonathan Littell, 2006), Le Wagon (Arnaud Rykner, 2010) and L’Âme du Minotaure (Dominike Audet, 2010)? Above the distinction between commercial success and critical success, it seems interesting to study a corpus of literary representations in order to establish criteria to evaluate the success of these creations, and possibly proving that some literary genres are allowing a better depiction of the reality of the Nazi camps.

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