A desconstrução entre verdade e ficção literária : o testemunho como escritura em Jacques Derrida

Abstract

This work aims to investigate the deconstruction of the borders between truth and fiction, based on the thoughts of Jacques Derrida concerning testimony. This proposal is centered on the texts Demeure: Maurice Blanchot (1998) and Poétique et politique du témoignage (2000) and moves towards an approach to the possibility of truth promised in the testimony as writing (écriture). This possibility is thematized adopting the following topics as a starting point: the presentation of the testimony as a performative act in which the witness demands faith or belief from the recipient to speak of an instant that is no longer present; the elucidation of the quasi-concept of writing (écriture) formulated by Derrida in texts from the 1960s, especially in Grammatology (1967); Derrida's problematizations about the notions of truth, especially in his discussion regarding language and meaning from the structuralism of Ferdinand de Saussure; and, the link between testimony and literary fiction discussed in Demeure: Maurice Blanchot (1998), with emphasis on the text L’instant de ma mort (1994), by Maurice Blanchot. In the light of the above mentioned, this research aims to contribute to a better elucidation of Jacques Derrida's reasons for not considering testimony as a means of proof, but as what induces us to the literary experience in his ways of differentially elaborating the relationships between truth, narrative and authorship. Furthermore, this research offers a way of situating the relationship between testimony, meaning and truth from the perspective of deconstruction.