A SPACE THAT REMEMBERS. THE SEARCH FOR IDENTITY IN THE MISSING PERSON OF PATRICK MODIANO

Abstract

In this paper, I analyze the way in which the second-generation memory of the Holocaust in France is presented, as well as the issue of memory in correlation with space in Patrick Modiano's novel Missing Person. The methodological bases of the work within the memory studies are the works of Marianne Hirsch, Maurice Halbwachs and Todor Kuljić, and within the research of space the works of Walter Benjamin and Michel de Certeau. Patrick Modiano opposes the generally accepted narrative of remembering the time of World War II in France. He uses Benjamin's commentary on reality and, in an obvious, dominant culture, seeks out those elements that have been pushed into a subordinate position, with the aim of erasing them from the collective memory. Modiano is aware of his country's past, and his oeuvre is also a voice of protest against the hegemonic discourse of silence related to the Holocaust. The documentary style of the novel and the writer's obsession with the topography of the city contrasts with the uncertainty felt by the protagonist due to his amnesia. His memories are awakened thanks to the convergence of space and the re-enactment of specific body movements. This connection between the problems of identity, memory, time and space in the novel forms a network of inseparable points in which some concepts are determined and interpreted with the help of others.