%0 Journal Article
%T The distorsion of reality: review of the reality in The Kindly Ones, by Jonathan Littell
%A Renault, Aurélie
%J Cahiers ERTA
%V 2013
%R 10.4467/23538953CE.13.006.2119
%N Numéro 3
%P 83-98
%K Hitler, nazi argumentation, pineal eye
%@ 2300-4681
%D 2013
%U https://ejournals.eu/en/journal/cahiers-erta/article/la-deformation-du-reel-comme-mode-de-relecture-du-reel-dans-les-bienveillantes-de-jonathan-littell
%X In Jonathan Littel’s “The Kindly ones”, Aue, the nazi homodiegetic narrator, affected with a forehead wound, feels as if he were endowed with a third eye, a pineal one, which would enable him to see beyond the opacity of things. This third eye leads him to direct a particular look on reality, which is apparently distorted: seized with hallucination, Aue comes to see, in Hitler, a Jew who would dissimulate his earlocks. Similarly, at the end of the novel, this pineal eye leads him to capture nothing more than a single aspect of reality: the Führer’s nose, which he has a sudden urge to twist. What causes this distortion of reality, this surge of incoherence in the midst of a work reflecting the nazi argumentation? The hypothesis of our reading consists in maintaining that this pineal eye turns Aue into the puppet of the author, who is thus addressing a cryptic discourse to his reader. Beyond the theme of resistance, an ontological reflection is coming to light: with Hitler merging into his antithesis, namely the Jew, mankind can only be perceived as one and the social Darwinism upheld by the supporters of nazism as empty of meaning.