Examen corrigé Université de Montréal Thèse numérique Papyrus ...

198between sender and receiver is the effect of a postal relay inscribed in the domain of hauntology.Derrida’s formulation that the letter might wander and err means that the active agent in letterwriting, letter sorting, and letter sending is the ghost. We know that Hawthorne is one of the mainaddressees of the novel, but we will see that the referential complexity of the address complicatesthe itinerary of the letter.What complicates the postal activity is the impossibility to represent the letter. Thequestion of representation is one of the main concerns of the narrative. Ishmael shows the failuresof the various attempts to represent the whale. In fact, his claim “I shall ere long paint to you aswell as one can without canvas, something like the true form of the whale” (258) is but anotherfailed attempt to decipher the true nature of the Leviathan. In fact, Ishmael tries to giverepresentations to the various elusive ghosts or shadows that populate the narrative. The point Iwant to raise is that desire, like the elusive ghosts, revolves around an absent center, and thisabsence structures both the content and contours of the letter.The notion of representation is also related to the question of writing, letters, and signs.The narrative is full of letters or signs that call for an interpretation. The various signs thatconstitute Moby-Dick create a symbolic economy in which the letter exists as a trace and aprojection of absence and distance. Using Derrida’s deconstructive model, we can say that therepresentation of writing as a system of signs reveals and hides in an infinite way. All the signs inMoby-Dick are orphan signs looking for a reference and an origin that is always already fleeing asthe narrative unfolds. The absence of an origin denotes an empty place, from which writingemerges. Always moving, this empty place redefines the traditional conception of writing. In OfGrammatology, Derrida argues: