Deadly destruction in the tales of Boris Vian

Abstract

This study proposes an approach to the thematic recurrence of the death of the characters in Vianesque stories, linked to the abrupt and explosive destruction of space as a significant allusion to the inexorable passage of time and as a violent reaction to the usury of the disease. The large number and variety of murders and suicides that occur in his short stories deserve an analysis since they seem to respond to a claim proposed by Boris Vian of freedom and lucidity and to a figuration of the victim-executioner relationships that are very often established in his fictions. The disease is linked to the morbid aquatic element and the surface of stagnant water is linked to the Vianesque obsession with the double and death. Death that he prefers willful and violent –often humorous with hints of black humor– by fall or beheading.