Writing Of Humanism In Les Racines Du Ciel

As the only writer who has twice won the Prix Concourt,Romain Gary occupies an important place in French literature.Most of his works reflect the past of Europe,Africa and America.This global view not only roots in his mutiple identities and rich experience,but also comes from his reflections on the human destiny,especially on cultures and civilizations,happiness and misfortune.The ideas of traditional humanism characterize his works.In 1956,Gary won the Prix Goncourt for Les Racines du ciel.He discusses two important themes in the middle of the twentieth century:ecological environment and human condition.By creating a legendary man,he expresses the determination to fight against the absurdism of the world and the faith to transform it.Through the protection of elephants,he calls all of us to preserve nature and to defend the existence of humanity.So the current thesis seeks to show the writing of humanism on several levels in the context of the twentieth century,and at the same time attempts to construct the relevance between his ideas and his biography in order to set a link between fiction and reality.Following the trajectory of "real-fiction-the projection of reality to fiction",this thesis is divided into three chapters.The first chapter takes a critical look at the twentieth century,when Les Racines du ciel was created.Social progress accompanied by economic development gradually occupied natural space,leading to the incompatibility between the preservation of nature and the progress of modern.This novel was created in the 1950s and 1960s during which the Bukavu Conference for the Protection of Fauna and Flora and the Bandung Conference were held.These two conferences marked the attention his contemporaries gave to the environmental protection and the decolonization of Africa.The situation that this novel reveals to us is characterized by multiple conflicts between nature and industry,nationalist movements and protection of human rights,etc.It also alerts us to the urgency of getting out of this situation.Given this background,the second chapter develops on the basis of textual analysis.The author begins by analyzing the natural figures,namely land,elephants and trees,that constitute the background of this story.Despite the insufficient description of the landscape,Gary makes this isolated landscape resonate in each character.As for human figures,three most representative characters were chosen,respectively Morel,a European,Waitari,an African,and Minna,a German as well as the only female character in this novel.The comparison among those three characters leads us to notice the rooting and uprooting in three dimensions.The first lies in the African soul,that is,to keep the African identity or to be assimilated by the occidental civilization.The second,remaining in the domain of language,is to insist on the use of dialects or to replace them with French,which would bring progress and liberation.The last is a reflection of concentration camps during the Second World War,which deprived millions of men of their human rights and destroyed the poetic parts of each,while there were still a handful of victims who rose up and fought for what the war had deprived them of.The third chapter seeks to summarize the three representations of humanism in this book:firstly,a firm struggle against colonization;then a new definition of humanity which lies outside of opposing ideas such as the kind and the evil,the good and the bad;finally,a construction of the poetic part in humanity on the basis of love and idealism.In short,his humanist ideas are characterized by two words:"resistance"and "enlightenment".Gary did not criticize human nature to the extreme,as many of his contemporaries have done.For him,he takes the pen not only for a weapon of resistance against the miseries of this world,but also for a more powerful tool to form a better world.Also,this thesis refers to some major features of his biography to understand this originality.In conclusion,this thesis discusses the influences that Gary's humanist ideas exert on his literary creation.He has created many idealistic characters who trust in freedom,dignity and fraternity and all other qualities that define a good man and a better world.In addition,he confers the mission of defending human rights to literature and seeks to define humanism in the wave of modernity."Resistance" and"enlightenment" transmitted in his writing would possess the value of directing us to find the exit of dilemma in this century.