The Marvelous in Pluie et Vent sur Telumee Miracle

Copyright by Jean Élie Belleroche 2011

The Report Committee for Jean Élie Belleroche Certifies that this is the approved version of the following report:

The nature of the Marvelous in René Depestre’s Hadriana dans tous mes rêves

APPROVED BY SUPERVISING COMMITTEE:

Co-Supervisor: Jean-Pierre B Cauvin Co-Supervisor: Alexandra K Wettlaufer

The nature of the Marvelous in René Depestre’sHadriana dans tous mes rêves

by Jean Élie Belleroche, B.S.; M.B.A.

Report
Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Master of Arts

The University of Texas at Austin May 2011

Dedication

To you, Father, I turn to for guidance, strength and wisdom. To my Dearly-LovedFriend-Wife Danielle, mychildren Elissa Solange and Sidney Daniel. To Soso, Dèdette, Mammie-Doune and Freine, for their support and encouragement.

Acknowledgements

My sincere gratitude to Drs Hélène Tissières and Jean-Pierre Cauvin for their continued support and all the great mentorship throughout this project. I am also grateful to the support and assistance of Drs Joubert Satyre, Toyin Omoyeni Falola, andAlexandra Wettlaufer, Paul Maurice François and Annette Lucksinger.

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Abstract

The nature of the Marvelous in René Depestre’s Hadriana dans tous mes rêves

Jean Élie Belleroche, M. A. The University of Texas at Austin, 2011

Supervisor: Jean-Pierre Cauvin Co-Supervisor: Alexandra K Wettlaufer My goal is to study the nature of the Marvelous in René Depestre's Hadriana dans tous mes rêves. I wantto demonstrate that René Depestre, in his novel, combines a number of surrealist or neo-surrealist premises that have influenced him as a Haitian writer. This goes beyond differences that can be discerned between the ―Surrealist marvelous‖ endorsed by André Breton and the surrealists, and Alejo Capentier’s ―marvelous real‖ later proposed by Jacques Stephen Alexis as ―marvelous realism.‖ Depestreadapts Haitian natives’ perceptions deep-rooted in their historical and social, cultural and religious past and ever-existing political and economical struggle. Taking into account both the surrealist perspective and the Haitian context, I shall address the complexity of the concept of the Marvelous and discuss Depestre’s use of ―zombification‖ as a form of metamorphosis, which preserves themystical nature of Vodou as a religion that syncretizes the Roman Catholic ritual of exorcism of the Christian West and the animist and magical practices inherited from Africa. vi

Scholars have explored the Marvelous and marvelous realism in Depestre’s works as a whole, but not in Hadriana dans tous mes rêves specifically. The exclusive nature of this study will show that Depestre draws fromHaiti’s complex cultural ethos as well as from surrealism’s key principles, to create a hybrid Marvelous typical of Haiti and Depestre’s aesthetic as a writer.

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Table of Contents Introduction ..............................................................................................................1 I. II. The narrative Marvelous in Hadriana dans tous mes rêves...........................4 Vodou: a syncretized religion .........................................................................6 Hadriana the woman: The Immaculate and Erzulie Fréda. .............................8 III. Zombification: a metaphor for metamorphosis ............................................10 The question of Hadriana’s death and reappearance ....................................10 IV. The logic (orrealm) of narrative and representation ....................................13 V. Discussion: The Marvelous: surrealism and Haiti ........................................19 Depestre and Surrealism: a hybrid Marvelous typical to Haiti .....................21 CONCLUSION...........................................................................................................31 BIBLIOGRAPHY...