Conclusion

Summary

The diverse corpus examined in this book shows the reader the original ways by which Lebanese women writers of French expression construct war narratives to oppose the war, criticise patriarchal values and to defend women's rights. Contrary to what classical narratology claims, this corpus demonstrates how the structure of the narrative informs, influences and, at times, creates meaning which, in return, relies on the structure to convey its message.

Classical narratology examines a narrative scientifically. It is not concerned with moral issues or with the production of meaning; instead, it speaks in favour of rigid structural elements that exist in every narrative and that transcend or exist irrespective of it. To a certain extent, there is truth in this statement. In any given narrative, there will be a narrative voice (in any or all of its various forms). However, as postclassical narratology argues, it would be a mistake to examine the structure independently of its content and the context in which it exists.

Throughout the book, I argue that it is certainly useful to examine the narrative voice from the classical narratology point of view. This allows us, for instance, to borrow some of Genette's categories in order to identify the voice's point of view and position it with regard to the story, whether the voice is speaking from inside or outside the story, or whether the voice is telling its own story or the story of others. However, this scientific examination of the voice is dry and does not take into account the context in which the narrative exists.

Examined through the postclassical narratological lens, the narrative voice carries multiple meanings: it is the feminine ‘I’ that transgresses male space to speak up, to defy conservative traditions and to defend women's rights; it is the feminine ‘I’ that bears witness to its trauma and the trauma of others; it is the historian postcolonial feminine ‘I’ that rewrites history from her own perspective since history has for long been written by colonialist males; and it is the humanist postmodern omniscient narrator that deliberately monopolises the voice in an attempt to understand what is happening in the war and to impose a message of peace and love when no one is listening.