In his autobiographical novel, which was left incomplete due to the author’s accidental death, Camus relates how Jacques Cormery, the protagonist, “receives his First Communion” in order to comply with the demand of his grandmother who wants this matter to be settled before he enters grammar school. It is a purely sociological rite in Jacques’s family. Though empty of meaning, and consequently negative for the child, this step is for him an opportunity to come in contact with mystery. This, however, does not develop in the direction of an intimation of transcendency but towards a deepening understanding of the quotidian mystery that his mother represents, and the obscure bond which unites him to her. Consequently, Camus thus explores the “horizontal transcendency” through which he attempts to elaborate on both his agnosticism and his sense of the sacred.

Key words: Albert Camus, autobiographical novel, sacredness/the sacred, agnosticism

The novel by Aude (Claudette Charbonneau‑Tissot), a Quebec writer, spotlights a woman who is swept into the shackles of madness which she then consciously leaves behind only to commit suicide. Her rejection of the inertia and the roles imposed on her raises the fundamental questions about life and death, conscience and freedom.
The difficulty with living a life becomes a philosophical problem, superficially devoid of a religious dimension as the protagonist is an atheist. The novel can thereby be read as a possible illustration of the secularization of Quebec, whose culture once deeply marked with Catholic traits is now showing its religionless face. At the same time, the sacred continues to be a crucial factor in that it passes its message in the language interspersed with Biblical images and liturgical rituals. The opposition between the rationalist view which underlies the protagonist’s decisions and the Catholic heritage which spills unconsciously into her thoughts is the focal point of this study.

Key words: ritual, death, religion, Aude, Claudette Charbonneau‑Tissot

This essay revolves around two different conceptions of the ritual interwoven in La feria (1963), a novel written by the Mexican writer Juan José Arreola. The first conception stems from the carnivalesque style which is vividly present in the novel. Since the fictionalized fair in honor to Saint Joseph in a small city of Jalisco is a ritual, in some respects similar to the carnival rituals analyzed by M.M. Bakhtin, the author attempts to trace coincidences between them. The second conception is based on the theory of potlatch, a social phenomenon associated with rituals, researched in archaic societies by anthropologist Marcel Mauss. In the analysis of La feria, a sacred and profane ritual, and the central event that takes place in the plot, the author gives several examples to demonstrate the fictionalization of potlatch conveyed through the polyphonic juxtaposition of voices within the novel. Taking into account the definition of ritual created by anthropologist Roy A. Rappaport, on the other hand, the author supports the idea of the existence of universal equivalencies in its practices, and attains to justify an inherent relationship between both, the spirit of the fictional fair, and the spirit of carnival rituals examined by Bakhtin. In general terms, the main purpose of the essay is to explore how the social and aesthetic meanings are interwoven in the ritual of La feria.

Key words: fair, carnivalization, sacred and profane rituals, potlatch

The aim of the article is to explore the role of selected rituals in the novel Hadriana dans tous mes rêves by René Depestre. The narration is focused on the zombification of the eponymous character on her wedding day and the sudden disappearance of her tomb after the funeral ceremony. Both rituals not only illustrate the social system of Haiti, but also reflect the particular relation between the narrator living in exile (like the author of the book) and his native island personified by Hadriana. First, the novel is analyzed from the anthropological perspective; then, the metaphorical dimension of the rituals described in the book is stressed. Finally, the ritual, possessing some degree of inherent agency, is presented as a symbolic act of performative utterance.

Key words: ritual, voodoo and Christian anthropology, marvelous realism (réalisme merveilleux), performative utterance

Tiziano Scarpa’s novel puts a great emphasis on the ritualistic expression in human life, which tends to be a meaningful and conscious way to expressing identity and personality. Music is a powerful means of expression for Cecilia, a young woman who considers herself as a weak creature. Deprived of any knowledge about her parents, she cannot find the way to fulfill social expectations and she is very vulnerable. Her talent to play the violin is linked to the concept of God, but then gives her the power to struggle against the world and all odds. In the music she plays, Cecilia can finally find her identity, and realizes that she is unique because of her music.

Key words: rite, expression, music, identity

This paper makes use of different disciplinary methodologies in order to analyze the issue of death and representation of funerary rites within the universe of the cyberspace, in order to propose a balanced integrative vision of the function and role of recurrent non‑places within the virtual space: the electronic cemeteries with their specific rituals. Starting from an anthropo‑semio‑semantic approach and using the comparatist method, the article analyzes the specificity of funerary rites (counter‑rituals) and ceremonies related to online memorials and electronic cemeteries pertaining to different cultural spaces (French, Romanian, Indian, English‑American and so on).

Key words: death, funerary rites, rituals, electronic cemeteries, online memorials, non‑places, postmodernism

Narco‑fiction, very popular in the recent Mexican and Colombian literature, emphasizes one of the determinants of narco‑culture: a deep rootedness in the primitive mentality and mythical thinking. Such roots translate into a particular religiosity, the cult of legendary narcos. The same mentality has driven the creation of a culture based on a ritual. The article analyzes examples of these phenomena, on the basis of selected texts of Colombian and Mexican narco‑fiction writers with the aim of showing that mythical thinking remains relevant in the postmodern and post‑political reality.

Key words: narco, Colombian fiction, drug trafficking, narco‑culture, violence

Marriage is one of the most important rites of passage and has a very rich rituality. The wedding ceremony is treated as a necessary consecration besides a formalization (legal, social and/or economic and financial) of a relationship between two people and then the legitimation of offspring born into this union. The wedding then becomes also a prerequisite for sexual intercourse. The sacred aspect of marriage is evident in the fact that it is treated as the fulfillment of a divine precept. The married life in Islam is viewed as a religious obligation as well. However, it is not a religious rite, nor a sacrament, but a contract between families that expect the creation of a new social group and the perservation of the bloodline, and which recognizes the man as the head of the family. The hierophany of that passage disappears in the mercantile context, in which the bride just has to be a mother of sons and — if she is not — she can be repudiated. The negative and dehumanizing view of Islamic marriage, seen as a monoandric, polygynous institution, is particularly emphasized by Oriana Fallaci in her various texts, starting with her second book, The Useless Sex: Voyage around the Woman (1961), and ending at the penultimate collection of her famous interviews, Interviews with Power (2009). Fallaci highlights the reification of Muslim
women, the violence against them, their submission and dependence on men, their questionable condition in the family and society, the problem of child brides, infibulation, and the obligation of the full veil.

Key words: Fallaci, Islam, child bride, marriage, rites of passage

For many years excluded and marginalized, Jewish women have managed to alter the definitions of Jewish ritual in an attempt to find more self‑conscious ways of religious expression. My paper examines how literature reflects this process by demonstrating different strategies employed by women writers to bridge the gap created by androcentric narratives. Given the example of two novels: E.M. Broner’s A Weave of Women (1978) and Allegra Goodman’s Paradise Park (2001), I discuss the changing role of Jewish women in Judaism. Whether by mirroring the male rituals, or reshaping the existing foundations of Jewish practice and thought, they have managed to change the performance and conceptualization of modern Judaism; the process, which is by no means completed.

Key words: Judaism, ritual, Jewish women, American‑Jewish literature

The three novels that have already been published as part of the Fragments of the World tetralogy planned by Hélène Rioux are composed of chapters that could, in principle, constitute separate short stories or novellas on their own.

However, each novel in the series allows the reader to note the relationship between the characters and places.

The author shows the inhabitants of the Earth during only one day in each novel: an equinoxor a solstice. For the writer and her fictional alter ego, the rhythm of creation is determined by the movement of the Earth around the Sun. Even though Rioux’s characters live in diverse places and in different ways, they are very much alike when faced with the everyday escape from the routine or succumbing to modern rituals.

Key words:  Hélène Rioux, Fragments of the World, rituals, rhythm, routine

This article compares the functions of rituals in the novels of Abdelkebir Khatibi and Tahar Ben Jelloun (La mémoire tatouée, Harrouda, L’Enfant de sable, La Nuit sacrée). The aim of the study is to show that Abdelkebir Khatibi and Tahar Ben Jelloun represent the traditional rituals of the body as elements of a hybrid language (corpslangue). This “language tattooed on the body” expresses the plurality of the North African culture and the contradictions of Moroccan society. It shows the Moroccan individual torn between the loyalty to tradition and the need for transgression.

Key words: Moroccan culture, rituals, tradition, transgression

In her first novel, La fille de la Casbah (The Daughter of the Casbah), published in 1996, Leïla Marouane describes daily life of women living in the heart of Algiers in the late 80s. This was the time of sociopolitical transformations (the birth of multiparty and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism). This article analyzes the practices and rituals mentioned by the writer on three levels: that of everyday life, tradition and Islam. The analysis demonstrated that these rites are used as benchmarks in the world undergoing violent changes, but at the same time they hinder the emancipation of the modern woman by dictating her behaviors consistent with social roles attributed to her (daughter, wife, mother).

Key words: Maghrebian literature, Islam, ritual, tradition

Catalan writer Joan Perucho, one of the most recognized Hispanic authors of fantasy literature, presents in his works experimental and avant‑garde subjects that are typical of the postmodern era. Nevertheless, his literary texts go far beyond parody and meaningless games. The main objective of this article is to analyse Peruchos’ novels taking into account the dichotomy between transcendence through believing — that is to say, strategies configured to transcend the spiritual void of the last century — and immanence understood, on the one hand, materially (as intertextual frames, forms, and procedures) and, on the other hand, culturally (as rituals related to law, moral, ethics, or gastronomy in the everyday life).

Key words: fantasy literature, Joan Perucho, transcendence, immanence, ritual

Martine Segalen, French ethnologist, pondering over rituals in lives of individuals and societies which are technology oriented, points not to the de‑ritualization but to change of the plane on which rituals occur (a shift from center to margin). Repeated everyday actions always become rituals when they carry symbolic meanings.

According to Stewart Lee Allen, drinking coffee together is one of the most prevalent social rituals. For ages coffee was called a ‘devilish beverage’; on the other hand, it was used in religious rituals as a means of contact with God.

For Qamar, the protagonist of Widad Tamimi’s novel Il caffè delle donne, drinking coffee becomes a ritual which was analyzed on the three levels: collective, individual and intimate relationship. The main point of the novel is coffee taseography, a mantic technique; it can be traced to the beginnings of Arabic traditions. For Qamar, of Arab origin, coffee not only becomes a ritual of initiation, but also is a stimulus for her new identity to emerge. An everyday cup of coffee shows a process of changes she undergoes, and helps her in solving her identity crisis.

It appears that one of the keys to reading Widad Tamimi’s novel is a meaning of rituals for immigrants who must find themselves in the new social environment and determine their new identity.

Key words: daily rituals, Italian migration literature, coffee tasseography, meaning of a ritual in the migration context, identity crisis

The following article discusses rituals of control and purification characteristic of anorexia and bulimia nervosa, as shown in Laurie Halse Anderson’s novel Wintergirls. One of the main assumptions of the paper is that eating disorders should be analyzed in the context of contemporary Western culture and the conventional models of femininity. As the Beauty Myth becomes the modern religion, rituals of hunger are interpreted as a present‑day version of religious rites.

Key words: anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, the Beauty Myth, rituals of control and purification

In the last book by Pier Vittorio Tondelli, Camere separate, the ritual motif appears in its two essential aspects: sacrum — as a relation between the main protagonist and the religious‑mystic sphere; and profanum as a relation between the main protagonist and society. Both traditional aspects of ritual are negated and distorted. The first, the religious‑mystic sphere, is negated by the protagonist himself. He rejects Catholic dogmatics and rituals because he finds no place for them alongside his homosexuality. This rejection prompts him to work out his own individual religiousness in which contact with God does not require any rituals. In terms of the social aspect, the protagonist is excluded from the society in which he lives. Social norms preclude him from participating in rituals such as marriage or mourning for the dead. This negative confrontation with ritual and social custom allows the protagonist to develop a new, more mature self‑awareness which allow him to accept the imminence of suffering and death.

Key words: Tondelli, ritual, transgression, initiation, mourning

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the extraliterary function of the rites performed on Speranza Island by Robinson Crusoe — a colonizer — and by Friday who represents the Third World. Such investigation is relevant because Michel Tournier’s Friday, or, The Other Island is a postcolonial transvalorization of the classic Robinsonade, in which the author inverts the classic story first published in 1719. In Tournier’s case, owing to the repetitiveness and cyclicity of everyday activities, it is possible to read the rites as an allegoric image of crucial processes — such as language teaching or getting married — taking place in the colonial and postcolonial world of Algeria. The rites in Tournier’s novel are also considered to be a symbolic attempt to establish new relationships between French colonizers and African colonized society, who both witnessed the process of decolonization in the twentieth century.

Key words: Robinson Crusoe, Friday, colonialism, postcolonialism, rite, Algeria, decolonization

J.M.G. Le Clézio’s passion for Amerindians, closely reflecting his interest in mysticism, is expressed in many of his texts: essays, translations and fictional texts. Their culture is often contrasted with materialism, characteristic of the culture of the Western civilization. This opposition relates to all areas of life and especially to the relation of man to the earth, which can be seen, among others, in the process of creating art. The indigenous art of American Indians, natural and associated with rituals, becomes a magical practice, holy and haunted by ghosts. Through analysing his essays, the article attemps to answer the question of the relationship that Le Clézio sees in the Amerindian’s respect for the forces of nature and the artistic expression: drawing, painting, singing and ritualistic dancing. It also considers the consequences of the presence of nature in the world of American Indian rituals.

Key words: rituals, art, Amerindians, nature, holiness, faith

The practice of invoking rituals is one of the resources most often employed in the Spanish New Theatre: a play may represent a rite, or resemble a certain ceremony. The characters celebrate little daily ceremonies or acts, often blasphemous, involving a ritual victim. In this respect, Bilbatúa notes that one can even observe a certain trend in the theatrical practice, namely, resorting to ceremonies on a regular basis. This however, may only be justified when used in order to “highlight religious, sexual, political and other repressions in a way they appear in our sub‑consious”. The authors, who seem to share the opinion of Riaza that “ceremonial theatre is better suited to challenge bourgeois spectator”, engage in rituals to denounce highly ritualised socio‑political reality of the Francoist period, to deal with present problems alluding to human condition more generally, or to counter taboos and social conventions overwhelming human beings, and leading to frustration and permanent malaise they suffer from.

Key words: the Spanish New Theatre, the theatre in the Francoist period, the theatre as an anti‑Francoist opposition, the ceremonial theatre, dramatization of rites and ceremonies

The aim of this paper is to show that the novels El Señor Presidente (1946) by Asturias, El otoño del patriarca (1975) by García Márquez and La fiesta del Chivo (2000) by Vargas Llosa represent dictatorship as a mythical‑ritual system. The discourses the autocratic power creates and promotes, reveal mythological characteristics: atemporality, cult of personality and a manichaean genealogic narrative, all subjugated to the functional explanation‑legitimization axis. The latter should be understood — rather than in rational terms — as a performative action, which takes place via a ritual system, constantly re‑actualizing the original mythical narrative. The modalities of ritual we distinguish in the three texts are: tortures, national holiday and sexuality. All these activities — indistinctly if performed by the dictator himself or by his institutional machinery — reveal common characteristics, among which I stress the condition of  ‘excess’ regarding their hypothetical pragmatic role.

Key words: dictatorship novel, Latin America, mythical‑ritual system, excess

The aim of the article is to show some analogies between the rites of passage — of the initiation to the adult life — in the traditional or archaic societies, as described by A. Gennep and V. Turner (three phases: separation, transition and reincorporation), and the behavior, actions, gestures and reactions of young characters in analyzed literature. The young protagonists instinctively follow almost identical pattern of the first two phases of the rites of passage. The third one may be missing, because of the “emerging adulthood”, i.e., a new stage of becoming adult, as proposed by J.J. Arnett. The remarkable difference is also that the young protagonists are never accompanied by the elders, as it happened in the archaic or traditional societies.

Key words: contemporary Italian prose, young writers, rites of passage

In his Enchanting a Disenchanted World. Revolutionizing the Means of Consumption George Ritzer depicts the analogies between religious and consumer behaviour observed in shopping malls and superstores, franchises and fast food restaurants, on cruise lines, in theme parks and restaurants. Ritzer calls those locations the cathedrals of consumerism. According to sociologists, a sacred, ritual character of commodities consumption can be compared to the dynamics of religious acts of worship, especially in shopping malls.

In Italian literature, the means and landscapes of consumption provide meaningful backgrounds for the writers to expose the influence of consumerism on social life and interpersonal relationships.

Key words: consumerism, cathedrals of consumerism, religious ritual, social relations, contemporary Italian novel

The paper focuses on the notion of ritual in literary works by Guillaume Apollinaire and Aimé Césaire. It applies the sociology of literature as an interpretive tool which emphasizes the function and social significance of rituals. Every writer who wishes to become popular has to undergo a ritual of consecration, which involves the employment of a literary strategy, and the understanding of the literary game and the institutions involved. In the case of Apollinaire and Césaire this means the consideration of several universes and time frames. This constraint then pushes them to reformulate the problems of literary tradition and modernity.

Key words: Rite, French literature, Apollinaire, Aimé Césaire, Modernity

One of the poetic tendencies which developed in the Spanish poetry of the second half of the twentieth century is metapoetry. Its substantial characteristics are: auto‑reference and self‑consciousness, which appear constantly in the poetry of Generation of Novísimos. This ritual of auto‑definition and self‑creation allows these authors to implement and, at the same time, realize, the theoretical proposals of the new poetic aesthetics. Jenaro Talens, one of the representatives of this generation, demonstrates the act of poetic creation in the most explicit way. The aim of this article is to show this rite as a manifestation of the relationship between the writer, the text, the receiver and the culture of their times. It will be done by analyzing Jenaro Talens’s poem titled “Ceremonias”.

Key words: ritual, Jenaro Talens, Novísimos, metapoetry, Spanish poetry

Marc Levy and Guillaume Musso are two contemporary French representatives of popular literature, who distinguish themselves among other authors by their significant presence in the media, for example social networks such as Facebook. Their fan pages allow them to conduct a promotional campaign of the novels coming out every year. Many elements of the Facebook promotional activity are repeated with every new novel release. In this text, we are analysing the content of these two writers’ fan pages from the period 2011—2013, including the book covers from these years, in order to answer how and why Levy and Musso resort to the method of ritualization based on the same behaviours, information or communication duplicated every year at the same time. References to the term “branding”, to the sociology of literature and also to contemporary studies about writers’ network presence help us in developing significantly this interdisciplinary analysis.

Key words: Marc Levy, Guillaume Musso, ritualization, popular literature, French popular contemporary novels, Facebook, branding, mark

Two recognised French‑speaking authors of Haitian descent, two real earthquakes, two different continents, one subject. If the situation is similar at the beginning, how is the plot built? What are the heroes’ attitudes towards natural disasters? How to live afterwards? The article attempts to identify the rituals and ceremonies in those two recent novels focusing on the earthquakes’ impact on the everyday life and social relations of the heroes.

Key words: Earthquake, Laferrière, Dalembert, Haïti

Despite the passage of time, the literary output by Jean Genet keeps arousing controversy in both critics and readers. It is due to the contents of his works which reflect the private life of a man who is determined to separate himself from the world of “decent people” and to live among the “aristocrats of Evil”. The present study discusses the interference of various rituals that occur in Genet’s prose writing, full of villains and vagabonds. It analyses five novels: Our Lady of the Flowers, The Miracle of the Rose, Funeral Rites, Querelle of Brest and The Thief’s Journal. The main goal is to describe how those rituals are connected to one another and why Evil can be perceived as a driving force. To present a vast range of this problem, the paper takes into consideration a number of religious, erotic and criminal elements.

Key words: prose works, rituals, religion, eroticism, Evil, delinquency