The Weight of the Words in Annie Ernaux’s Auto-Socio-Biographical Work
Abstract
The aim of this article is to highlight the formal dimension of Annie Ernaux’s auto-socio-biographical project. We examine her technique of distancing, which resembles Barthes’s concept of writing degree zero: a textual autobiography in which the protagonists are words–the words of others, received words and phrases that Ernaux transcribes in quotation marks or italics. These words act as symbolic markers, opening up painful memories of childhood and adolescence within the autobiographical space, as seen in Enfance by Nathalie Sarraute. In Ernaux’s writing, these words become signs that both reveal her social class and signal her access to writing..
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