Karmel Daoud's Meursault Investigation: Language and Identity of Multicultural Subjects

Abstract

This study examines the novel Meursault Investigation by Algerian author Kamel Daoud, focusing on the language and identity of multicultural subjects. Meursault Investigation reinterprets Albert Camus' classic French novel “The Stranger” from the perspective of an unknown Algerian man called “Arab” who was killed by the main character Meursault. The novel deals with the tools of colonialism, identity and oppression in Algeria during the French occupation. Daoud argues that French, imposed on colonial Algerians, has become a tool of oppression, and that Algerians must regain their language in order to claim their cultural and ethnic identity. It is also a strong criticism of French colonialism and its continued influence on Algeria, and raises important questions about language and identity related to other post- colonial societies as well as Algeria. Algeria's historical background, which had been under long colonial rule, also had a profound influence on literature, resulting in a triple structure of the literary expression language of Arabic, French, and Berber. Under French colonial rule, writers had no choice of language due to the implementation of French language assimilation policies. French was a forced language and a language of oppression. So why did Kamel Daoud choose French, the language of the enemy, to write his work in 2014, 70 years after Kamel Daoud's Stranger was published? Daoud has two reasons for choosing French, the language of the enemy, as an expression tool for literary works. First, it is to restore the name of ‘Arab’ (‘Moussa’) that was not even given a name under colonial rule. This means the restoration of national identity. Second, after his brother's death, he had to represent the mother's voice, who did not possess the ruler's language, and his eyes were always separated from the mother's delusion and protected himself. This is reminiscent of Algeria, which remains under French influence, and means separation and independence from it. For Dowd, French, the language of the colonial state, is the language of recovery, the language of independence, the language of creation and order, and the language of subversion that summons past situations and events. In Daoud's work, the unknown “Arab” and “Harun” are multicultural subjects of the times. Multiculturalism has be- come a downgraded expression of our society for strangers and migrants. Rather than accepting diversity that is distinct from mainstream Koreans, we evaluate them from the perspective of discrimination and exclusion. Why should they be called “multicultural” that excludes personal identity, including their own ethnicity, historicality, and cultural diversity? Since the situation of “Arabians” and “Moussa” in Kamel Daoud's work resembles the existence of multicultural subjects coexisting in our time, we would like to examine their language and identity, diagnose the present of multicultural sub- jects, and predict the future.