Military discipline and revolutionary exaltation: The dismantling of "l'illusion lyrique" in Malraux's L'Espoir and Bataille's Le Bleu Du Ciel

Romanic Review, Nov 2000 by Boldt-Irons, Leslie Anne

If Malraux is perhaps less likely to recognize the presence of myth in his depiction of "virile fraternity" than he is to recognize other myths related to combat and revolution, he does make clear reference to the war-time tendency to dramatize that which is less "romanesque" than banal. The journaliste, Shade, looks for dramatic examples of suffering, of bravado, in short of the romanesque, but finds in fact that the "banal" is more tragic than what is normally considered to be "romanesque": "Shade etait la pour chercher du pittoresque ou du tragique, mais son metier lui repugnait: le pittoresque etait derisoire, et rien n'etait plus tragique que le banal, que ces milliers d'existences humaines semblables A toutes les autres ..." (414).

The cemeteries for the revolutionary dead are seen in another passage as being imbued with no more value than any other: "Les cimetieres des revolutions sont les memes que les autres ..." (268) Nevertheless, characters like le Negus persist in finding in combat and revolution a means for dramatizing their existence. He no longer believes in the "myth" of the Revolution: "Depuis un mois, [le Negus] ne croft plus a la Revolution. L'Apocalypse est finie" (488). However, he continues to find refuge in the romantic notions associated with combat, which derives its drama from the risk of heroic death: "Depuis le lance-flammes de l'Alcazar, le Negus s'est refugie dans ce combat souterrain qu'il prefere, ou presque tout combattant est condamne, ou il sait qu'il mourra, et qui garde quelque chose d'individuel et de romantique. Quand le Negus ne se tire pas de ses problemes, il se refugie toujours dans la violence ou dans le sacrifice; les deux A la fois, c'est mieux encore" (489). It is this blend of cynicism vis-a-vis the "myth" of revolution on the one hand, and desire for escape in the romantic dramatization of combat on the other, that inspires, I believe, the oscillation between graphic descriptions in L'Espoir that detail the horrors and real catastrophes of war, and a curious series of descriptions that tend to undermine these graphic scenes by suggesting an almost dream-like or unreal setting, as though the war-scenes described were merely a backdrop or theatrical set. It would appear that the graphic scenes are at once able to heighten a sense of the serious personal risks encountered by the revolutionary - thus animating the sense of drama incurred by participation in combat - as well as to interject a sense of the real effects of war, an antidote to the combatant's tendency to dramatize a personal glory without calculating the cost of this heroism to civilian welfare. The other extreme, the inclusion of scenes that tend to undermine the graphic nature of war by suggesting a theatrical backdrop or set, are able to problematize as well, but beginning from an opposite point of departure, the tendency to dramatize glorious participation in revolution or combat. The suggestion of a theatrical backdrop serves in this case to heighten the sense of isolation or escape, a refuge in which the combatant indulges in dreams of personal glory or even political triumph, irrespective of the catastrophic consequences of revolutionary activity.