Examen corrigé Université de Montréal Thèse numérique Papyrus ...

167conditional, between choosing and the negation of choosing is, of course, characteristic of alldiscourses. As expressed by Žižek in The Parallax View:[Bartleby’s] “I would prefer not to” is to be taken literally: it says “I would prefer not to,”not “I don’t prefer (or care) to”—so we are back at Kant’s distinction between negativeand infinite judgment. In his refusal of the Master’s order, Bartleby does not negate thepredicate; rather, he affirms a nonpredicate: he does not say that he doesn’t want to do it;he says that he prefers (wants) not to do it.” (381; emphasis original)Žižek presents Bartleby’s well known “I would prefer not to” as a form of new politics, theBartleby’s politics, 54 which moves beyond mere resistance, “from the politics of “resistance” or“protestation,” which parasitizes upon what it negates, to a politics which opens up a new spaceoutside the hegemonic position and its negation” (381-382). In the case of Moby-Dick, we seemany variations of the Bartleby politics: from absolute negation to complete surrender.In his Demeure Derrida talks about the “slippage between the three I’s” (72)that is, theslippage among the narrator, author and character. The spectral connection among the three I’sproduces an infinite mise en abyme. There are of course major overlaps among the three I’s,namely that they exchange positions. Ishmael, the narrator of the narrative, is not so much acharacter as a narrative effect. Like a ghost, he is lurking behind the other characters. He is tornbetween many letters: the non-return of Ahab’s letter, the impossible arrival of Pip’s letter, andthe return of Queequeg’s letter, to mention only a few. He finally appropriates Queequeg’s andMelville’s letter and sends it to the reader. I shall study the various ways in which Melville maybe said to read the letter of The Scarlet Letter, taking a closer look at the inter-weaving ofnarrative temporality (prolepsis and analepsis) with the psycho-poetics of the double and