"Rien de Vivant ni de chaud": Depicting and Resisting Structural Violence In René Depestre's Le Mât de Cocagne and Marie Vieux-Chauvet's Les Rapaces

Abstract: This article performs a comparative reading of Marie Vieux-Chauvet's Les Rapaces (1986) and René Depestre's Le Mât de cocagne (1979), focusing on how the novellas depict the relationship between the body, especially the body in pain, and possibilities for political resistance. I argue that the texts' depictions of direct and indirect violence under the Duvalier dictatorships push the reader to consider the connection between structural violence and physical pain, and the capacity for pain to "destroy a person's self and world," as Elaine Scarry suggests. Whereas Le Mât de cocagne suggests that the embodied effects of structural violence can be overcome through ideological fortitude and creative movement, Les Rapaces shows how these effects destroy forms of social life. Comparing scenes from the two texts depicting forced and exploited labor, starvation, and the international blood trade also demonstrates a broader turn toward critiques of global capitalist exploitation in late-twentieth-century Haitian literature. Rezime: Atik sa a konpare liv René Depestre la : Le Mât de cocagne (1979) ak liv Marie Vieux-Chauvet a Les Rapaces (1986), nan fason de (2) tèks sa yo dekri relasyon ki gen ant kò nou menm kòm moun, espesyalman yon kò ki an soufrans, ak posiblite menm kò sa a genyen pou fè rezistans politik. Dapre mwen, fason tèks sa yo dekri vyolans dirèk ak endirèk sou diktati Divalye a pouse lektè a konsidere koneksyon ki gen ant vyolans estriktirèl ak doulè fizik, epi ki jan doulè gen kapasite pou « fè yon moun detwi pwòp tèt li ak tout anviwonnman li », tankou Elaine Scarry sijere sa nan liv li a The Body in Pain (Yon kò ki an soufrans). Pandan Le Mât de cocagne sijere mouvman fizik la ka brize efè fizik vyolans estriktirèl yo, Les Rapaces montre fason efè sa yo detwi lavi sosyal la. Lè n konpare sèn de (2) tèks sa yo ki dekri travay fòse ak eksplwatasyon, grangou ak jan komès entènasyonal la ap souse san Ayisyen yo, tout sa yo demontre kote otè ayisyen yo jwenn enspirasyon pou kritike eksplwatasyon kapitalis mondyal la nan fen 20yèm syèk la.