Breaking the Thread: Structure and Exile in Wajdi Mouawad’s Incendies

Abstract

Published in 2003, the Lebanese-Québécois playwright Wajdi Mouawad’s Incendies is a work which explores issues of exile and displacement. Guided by theorist Mieke Bal’s contention that an analysis of how the linguistic structure of a narrative text and its thematic concerns correlate with one another may lead to an enriched understanding of both dimensions, and thus the text overall (181-2), I will illustrate how this play structurally reflects Edward Said’s concept of exilic subjectivity by featuring binary oppositions that constantly interact with one another while never completely losing their separateness. In addition to relying on both Incendies and F. Elizabeth Dahab’s Voices of Exile in Contemporary Canadian Francophone Literature, my investigation will also utilize Edward Said’s essay “Reflections on Exile,” Mieke Bal’s Narratology, and other literary analyses of Incendies, as well as referencing the theories of de Saussure and Derrida. Furthermore, an analysis of the manner in which Mouawad blends historical facts with fiction will demonstrate how the renegotiation of oppositional elements is a phenomenon which applies to the very nature of Incendies as a collective whole, and thus how this is a work that both stylistically and essentially reflects an exilic consciousness that transcends stasis and victimization.