The Epic of the Cephalopod
2002; Wayne State University Press; Volume: 24; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/dis.2003.0018
ISSN1522-5321
Autores Tópico(s)French Literature and Critical Theory
ResumoConsider the cephalopod represented in Victor Hugo's ink and wash drawing of an octopus, Pieuvre (Hugo 279), a black, nearly formless stain that evokes the morbid, lugubrious aspect of this animal; described by Hugo: "one would say a beast made of ash that inhabits the water. It is spider-like in form and chameleon-like in coloration." 1 As is the case for the most extreme examples of zoological and botanical classes, such animals touch on the limits of monstrosity, evoking worldly fears and unconscious anguish. One can, in fact, localize the source of the octopus as monster par excellence, as a creature of nightmares and terror, an icon of the horrors of death: it was the moment when Victor Hugo, in Les travailleurs de la mer (1866), substituted the local word pieuvre, used only in the Channel Islands, for the more common term poulpe. One should [End Page 150] remember that in French, the word for the living animal is usually different from that of the carcass to be transformed into foodstuff; Hugo's differentiation between poulpe and pieuvre takes this transformative logic one step further, for while normally man eats poulpe, in Les travailleurs de la mer the opposite is true, pieuvre threatens to eat man, in the most horrendous of manners.
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