Examen corrigé Université de Montréal Thèse numérique Papyrus ...

96inhabits silence, absence, and all tropologies. Does symbolization fail in The Scarlet Letter?Does failure suggest a tropology that attempts to control the economy of the letterfrom adulteryto able, to angel, to indefiniteness? These signifieds that are attached to the scarlet letter in thescene of reading, however, do not cancel one another; they demonstrate a semiotic economy inwhich any approach can be convincing as long as it does not violate the hermeneutic certitude ofindeterminacy. Following Derrida’s logic in Of Grammatology, one can talk about literature as a“supplément” which “means both a substitute and an addition” (Garber 14). By this logic,Hawthorne’s “The Custom-House” is a supplement to another textThe Scarlet Letter. It is anarchive that substitutes for the absence of biographical facts and contextual referents. It is also aremedy for that absence. A form of cultural production in the West, the archive hides its status asa supplement.“The Custom-House”an archivecan only unfold in the field of the supplementbecause it is insufficient. Yet, it poses as totalizing and complete. To save The Scarlet Letter fromforgetfulness and misinterpretation, “The Custom-House,” a ghostly archive, itself an image ofspectrality and referentiality, covers over, through the imperative of the narrator and theinjunctions of the ghosts of the dead fathers, the fear of death and loss. This reminds us of thecertain “secret” or “something” which can never be present to the scene of the archivalinterpretation if the archive is to maintain its paradoxical adherence to the tuché, to theimpossible or missed encounter with the Real. The imperative of “The Custom-House” is to“miss” or to “disavow” an encounter that is, paradoxically and at once, central to anunderstanding of historical Hawthorne and whose suppression is needed in order to present a“coherent” version of Hawthorne. It would seem, in order for the narrator to offer a genuine