John Banville’s "Shroud": A deconstructionist’s confession
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Date
2013
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Adam Mickiewicz University
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Abstract
This article analyses John Banville’s novel Shroud as the protagonist’s autobiography which both
follows and resists the confessional mode. Axel Vander, an ageing famous academic and champion of
deconstruction, faces the necessity to confront his real self, although he spent his entire academic life
contesting the concept of authentic selfhood. Alluding to the infamous case of Paul de Man, whose
deconstructionist theories have been reinterpreted in the light of the revelation of his disgraceful wartime
past, Banville’s novel presents a man who veers between the temptation to fall back on his theories
in order to uphold a lifelong deception, and the impulse to reveal the truth and achieve belated absolution.
The article examines Vander’s narrative as an attempt at a truthful account of his life, combined
with the conflicting tendency to resist self-exposure. Despite the protagonist’s ambivalent and selfcontradictory
motivations, his account of his life belongs to the category of confessional writing, with
its accompanying religious connotations. It is argued that the protagonist’s public denial of authentic
selfhood is linked to his private evasion of moral culpability.
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John Banville, Paul de Man, deconstruction, autobiography, confession
Citation
Studia Anglica Posnaniensia, vol. 48.2-3 (2013), pp. 93-102
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0081-6272