Utopia and Dystopia in Colonial Writings: Henry Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines (1885) and Pierre Benoit’s L’atlantide (1919): A Postcolonial Study
| dc.contributor.author | BESSAD Djedjiga | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2026-01-21T10:35:48Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2026-01-21T10:35:48Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2016 | |
| dc.description | 127p.; 30cm; + (CD-Rom) | |
| dc.description.abstract | This dissertation aims at studying the issue of utopia and dystopia in two colonial fictions: Henry Rider Haggard’s King Solmon’s Mines (1885) and Pierre Benoit’s L’atlantide (1919). While the former belongs to the British literature, the latter belongs to the French one. Both were written during the period of the height of imperialism in their countries. While the peak of the British colonial power was the late nineteenth century, the French one was the two first decades of the twentieth century. In this dissertation, I seek to demonstrate that there is a simultaneous incorporation of utopian and dystopian elements in both fictions. These elements are manifest in the English and the French characters’ vision towards the colonial world notably “the human world” i.e. the inhabitants, and “the vegetable world” i.e. the natural environment. The existence of utopian aspects in the two fictions is evidenced by “apocalyptic and romantic images”, concepts borrowed from Northrop Frye’s essay “Archetypal Criticism: Theory of Myths”. As for the dystopian aspects, the evidence is given through “the demonic images” and the ironical situations, two other concepts taken from Frye’s theory. Throughout the discussion chapters of my dissertation, I explore the romanticisation of some native characters and the landscape in the colonial world which creates a desirable or utopian atmosphere for the white men in the colonial world-South Africa in Haggard’s fiction and Algeria in Benoit’s fiction. I also discuss the demonisation of other native characters, because they hinder the fulfillment of the white characters’ utopian imperial dreams, and the challenges caused by the colonial natural environment. These aspects cause disillusionment for the white men and render their life in the colonial world undesirable i.e. dystopian. I also consider the variety of myths incorporated in the two authors’ discourses and make an ideological reading of them relying upon Roland Barthes’s theory of myths. Finally, I have come to the result that: the authors’ discourses are ambivalent; they are “paradisiacal” and “anti-paradisiacal” at the same time | |
| dc.identifier.citation | Cultural Studies | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://dspace.ummto.dz/handle/ummto/29596 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.publisher | Université Mouloud Mammeri Tizi-Ouzou | |
| dc.subject | Utopia and Dystopia | |
| dc.subject | Colonial Writings | |
| dc.subject | A Postcolonial Study | |
| dc.subject | British literature | |
| dc.title | Utopia and Dystopia in Colonial Writings: Henry Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines (1885) and Pierre Benoit’s L’atlantide (1919): A Postcolonial Study | |
| dc.type | Thesis |