Le besoin de l'autre dans Le Square de Marguerite Duras

Abstract

The need of the other is one of the prevailing themes in the works of Marguerite Duras. This very theme is reflected in her novel The Square which is mainly about two characters who sit next to each other on a bench of a Square. The need of the other is represented by the man and the girl in different ways such as the need of love and dialogues, the fear of silence and loneliness and the need of having changes in life to replace the need for the other. Each of these characters suffers because of being alone and having no one around. The main aim of this paper is to analyse how the need of the other results in different attitudes and feelings such as the fear of loneliness and silence, the desire for conversing with others, the drive of death and killing, the need for having a stable life and above all having someone to love. Both characters suffer due to being alone and marginalized by the others but unlike the man, who accepts this fixed reality and does not seek to change it, the girl has the hope of changing her life by finding a man who is ready to love her and change her most hated status of an object to a full human being but at the risk of losing her identity and being completely submissive and dependent on the presence of a man. Dying and living is the same for the man as he works only to feed himself and survive while the girl, although she suffers a lot due to serving an old woman, is not ready to die or kill the old woman to make her life better because she needs a man to rescue her. The need of the other culminates in creating the fear of falling into silence again even while both characters are talking because they know very well that the conversation in fleeting and will not last.