The creative nonfiction of Marguerite Duras

Traditionally, scholars have classified literature into three distinct genres: drama, fiction and poetry. The emergence of what is now called the "fourth genre" has begun to change traditional categorization. Creative nonfiction is nonfiction characterized by personalist impulses, the subjective viewpoint and other "literary" techniques. Particularly pertinent to Duras' late works, creative nonfiction provides an umbrella under which the auto-referentiality of this work can be understood.; Although much has been written about the autobiographical elements of Marguerite Duras' work, nothing has been written applying her work to the emergent genre of creative nonfiction. In this dissertation I focus on the last works of Marguerite Duras, using La Vie Materielle as a point of departure. This work is notable for its break with the traditional conventions of the autobiographical tradition. The analysis of this text, somewhat linguistic in nature, is followed by an analysis of Duras' last three works: Yann Andrea Steiner, Ecrire and C'est tout. These works are linked thematically and chronologically, demonstrating the final development in the creative nonfiction of Duras. I explore the auto/bio/graphical, or more appropriately auto-graphesis, the construction and representation of subjectivity. Other methodological underpinnings of my analysis include: rhetorical/discursive theory, linguistic analysis and feminist performativity theory as elaborated by Judith Butler. Although a great deal has been written about the autobiographical impulse in Duras' work, this dissertation focuses on the final mutation/development of this theme.