L’ Imaginaire Dans Le Roman De Camara Laye

ABSTRACT

Several studies have been devoted to the narratives of Camara Laye. None of them, as far as we have been able to determine, has examined his novels as a unit whole, with the same protagonist who changes his name from time to time only to reflect the level of his spiritual and psychological attainment.

This thesis contends that the novels of Camara Laye, that is L'Enfant noir, Le Regard du roi and Dramouss, seen as the creations of the imagination of the one and only mind of the author, deliver quite a connected philosophical and moral message to mankind. By employing the mythocritical methodology, we have been able to give anthropological dimensions to an apparently typical african writing. The emphasis was on the structural and anthropological analyses of symbols and images in the novels, and on the comparison of myths present in the works with other myths in world mythologies wherever and whenever it was possible to do so. After all myth, in a profound sense, is it not the totality of Man's journey on Earth, his destiny, his reaction to common events and other happenings around him, his beliefs, his sense of who he is and where he is going?