Portrait des 'professionals' en tant que narrateurs dans la fiction courte victorienne et édouardienne : les discours de pouvoir des médecins, des hommes d’église et des hommes de loi dans les nouvelles de Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Wilkie Collins et Arthur Conan Doyle

摘要

Members of the middle class, particularly clergymen, doctors, and lawyers occupy a central place in Victorian literature, both as narrators and characters. However, it seems that this prominent place fosters questioning as much as empowerment. This paradoxical position seems to stem from the recurrent appearance of members of the professions in texts within which the principles of truth and meaning are undermined. Therefore, we will show how members of the professions, both as narrators and characters, put forward discursive strategies which allow them to manipulate the notion of truth and to destabilize meaning. In order to do so, we will study predominantly short stories, as this genre was favoured by Victorian writers as the locus of narrative and literary experimentation. Besides, this genre was widely read by Victorian audiences and can be seen as a privileged media for authors to express their doubts and commentaries on contemporary society. We have chosen to study the works of three authors in particular, who played a vital role in the bringing of the middle classes on the forefront of Victorian literary representation. Indeed, we will focus on Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, the son of a clergyman and a man fascinated by the arcana of theology, Arthur Conan Doyle, a doctor himself, before he became a writer and William Wilkie Collins, who had a passion for science and the transformations its growing influence imposed on Victorian society. What is more, these three writers' active role in the establishment of the most popular Victorian periodicals attests to their vast contribution to the development of Victorian values.