Hervé Guibert: the Emergence of the “Self” through Icono-Textual Descriptions of a Body in Metamorphosis

Abstract

The body has been scrutinized in various researches as a representation device capable of revealing certain states of existence of the person in his different aspects of life. It has been the subject of sociological, philosophical, biological, anthropological or psychologi - cal studies. Certain subjects such as illness, passion, pleasure and suffering, metamorphoses, identity or social taboos have been studied in their relationship to the body and have allowed a deeper knowledge of the individual, the “self” and personal identity. Hervé Guibert follows in his work a project of self-unveiling that is realized in a hybrid field of image and text; especially when he falls ill and tells the story of a suffering body. A recurring theme in his work is the body, through which he tries to show what constitutes his identity, the deconstruction and finally the reconstruction of this identity through the prism of illness. Guibert observes himself from the outside look through the mirror or through the camera. Therefore, through the image of the body, he constructs the distinct levels of his self-narrative. Furthermore, writing thus becomes a way of survival for the author, a way of reconstructing a new identity.