Identites en conflit et «culture clash» dans Stupeur et tremblements d’Amelie Nothomb

Abstract

The problem of identity is developed with a maximum acuity in Amelie Nothomb’s novel “Stupeur et tremblements” (Fear and Trembling), as the author has a double origin: Belgian, according to her birth certificate, but also Japanese, as she grew up in the Land of the Raising Sun. However, this double determination does not prevent the “culture clash” from happening. But beyond this first reading level, which opposes the Occidental and Oriental mentalities, there is also a feverish identity search, which does no longer belong to the sphere of cultural or ethnical problems: the main character, an avatar of the author herself, discovers that the individual identity is about to be lost in the contemporary world, where Man is nothing but a small piece in a huge mechanism.