The Art of Forgetting: Ricœurian Theory of Oblivion in Annie Ernaux’s <i>The Years</i>

In this article, we examine Annie Ernaux’s The Years (2008) in the light of Paul Ricœur's notion of ars oblivionis (the art of forgetting). By focusing on her distinctive narrative choices – most notably the substitution of the personal ‘je’ (I) with a collective ‘on’ (we/they) and her framing of the past via historical and visual images – we show that The Years constructs a collective identity out of depersonalised memory. Invoking Ricœur's ideas of narrative identity and testimony, we demonstrate how Ernaux's impersonal voice transforms individual recollection into a shared generational narrative. By displacing subjectivity into a communal perspective, we argue, Ernaux enacts what Ricœur describes as ethical forgetting, an ‘enlightened forgetting’ that serves as a guardrail to memory and allows for a ‘measured use of remembering’ in pursuit of a just memory. This way, The Years does not negate or erase memory but reconfigures it illustrating Ricœur’s claim that forgetting can preserve memory by making space for collective understanding.