Ritið : tímarit Hugvísindastofnunar - 01.01.2013, Page 77

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A B S T R A C T
Staging a Trial
Forgiveness as a Form of Justice in Hélène Cixous’s
La Ville parjure ou le Réveil des Érinyes
The article deals with Hélène Cixous’s play La Ville parjure ou le Réveil des Érinyes,
which is an epic tragedy, combining history, memory, and myth. The play addresses
the failings of modern society and the collapse of core values in a deeply flawed
democratic order. The French Blood Affair (L’affaire du sang contaminé) in the 1990s
is the play’s main term of reference, but it was written when “ethnic cleansing”
was taking place in Bosnia and it deals with a topic outside of time and space. As a
meta-narrative, the article approaches the play from the perspective of transitional
justice and memory studies to illuminate societal and individual efforts to grapple
with a “troubled past.” An emphasis is placed on Cixous’s alternative way of address-
ing justice: through forgiveness instead of criminal prosecution or other forms of
retribution or reconciliation. Here it is argued that the play provides a forum for
public catharsis and that Cixous is reproducing a trial by theatre to allow the victims
to gain what Shoshana Felman termed “semantic authority.” The purpose is not
simply to repeat the victim’s story, but to create it, historically. The article discusses
the question of how the telling of a story of genocide may be therapeutic to both
the victim and to society. It also analyzes the meaning in the play, of the concepts
of “forgiveness” and “apology,” with a special focus on the question of whether for-
giveness should be unconditional or conditional. The context is Derrida’s proposi-
tion of a negotiation between these two variants based on the notion of forgiveness
as a double structure, both irreducible to one another and indissociable.
Keywords: Hélène Cixous, political theatre, The French Blood Affair, troubled pasts,
transitional justice
AF SVIðI FYRIRGEFNINGAR