A Professional Conscience: On an Episode of Self-Accusation in Raymond Queneau's The Last Days

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McAuliffe, Sam. 2019. A Professional Conscience: On an Episode of Self-Accusation in Raymond Queneau's The Last Days. In: Garry L. Hagberg, ed. Narrative and Self-Understanding. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 141-158. ISBN 978-3-030-28288-2 [Book Section]

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Official URL: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-03...

Abstract or Description

A course of action plays out in the margins of Raymond Queneau’s early novel that provides an object lesson in the peculiar phenomenon of self-accusation. The character assigned this unfortunate fate seems intent on pulling at the thread that will make him unravel, for reasons no one else can understand, driven by a conscience that will never be satisfied with the sacrifices made to appease it. The contradictions and tensions characteristic of the process of self-accusation will be approached here with Nietzsche’s idea of ressentiment in mind, that form of existence which shows remarkable inventiveness in the pursuit of its own abasement.

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Book Section

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https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28289-9