Examen corrigé Université de Montréal Thèse numérique Papyrus ...

30728 The meaning of the archive comes to it from the past, from the Greek arkheion which originallymeant a house, an address, and a residence of archons. As Derrida argues, the name arkhé contains init the meaning of commencement and commandment. The archive invokes the origin and at the sametime the command of the patriarch. The figure of the patriarch, which is derived from the Freudianpsychoanalytic model, is always already there lurking in the archive. This omnipresence postponesthe act of obedience but it keeps it alive even if the document is burnt. The patriarch, then, inhabitsthe pages of the archive and is contained within its ashes when it is destroyed.29 Gérard Genette argues that the paratext is the liminal zone between the “peritext” or all that iscontained within the text and the “epitext” or all that comes from outside the text (5). Myunderstanding of the term brings Genette’s theorization into dialogue with the Derrideandeconstructive model in which both writing and reading dwell in the fissures and the residues of thearche-text and différance.30 I am using Freud’s model of melancholia which invokes incorporation.31 I am alluding to Hawthorne’s various fathers: his biological father, whom he lost at a very youngage, his Puritan ancestors, and his literary fathers.32 Diana Fuss differentiates between the two seemingly associated words, identity and identification.She argues that identifications are erotic, intellectual, and emotional. Thus, identification isidentification with another. This means that identity is relational and is never identical to itself butonly a possibility in relation to an other.