Dispossessing the Father in the Fiction of Michel Tournier

Abstract

The anxiety of fatherhood informs the writing of Michel Tournier in both its fictional content and its wider literary context. Tournier’s fathers often appear as ineffectual figures who are quickly eliminated from the texts they appear in, whilst his main characters betray an unmistakable reluctance to become fathers in their own right. Furthermore, Tournier’s texts make constant reference to literary forefathers, often establishing a web of intertextual allusions and references so as to operate an ideological subversion of previous texts. The Bloomian overtones of Tournier’s relationship with his literary fathers is clear and has already been commented on by critics; Michael Worton, for example, writes that ‘Tournier’s response to his acute awareness of literary influence is ambivalent. He feels both an almost angry envy and genuine loving gratitude.’¹ I examine some of the many negative images of fatherhood which appear in Tournier’s fiction, arguing that the only real alternative to accepting fatherhood is — in the context of Tournier’s writing — escape into a mythology of self-creation which serves both to deny the father and to preclude the possibility of becoming a father in one’s own right.