The Structure of Confrontation

It was around 1930, according to Sartre, that Frenchmen discovered, with stupefaction, their historicity.1 What he meant by that sweeping generalization was that Frenchmen, like other Europeans, re-discovered the menaces of history after les grandes vacances of the 1920's. Suddenly there was the feeling that the life of an individual did not depend on his own efforts, on luck, or on the good or ill will of a few people, but was rather governed by obscure and collective forces so that its most private circumstances reflected the state of the whole world.2 Everything seemed uncertain, even as war and death appeared inevitable. Under these conditions, writers were obliged to reconsider the whole enterprise of literature: Brutalement reintegres dans l'histoire, nous etions accules 'a faire une litterature de l'historicite.3 The writer who felt himself situated in his own time could not claim

Art · Sociology · French Historical and Cultural Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · North African History and Literature