First Response

In The Instant of My Death, Maurice Blanchot writes a story about a young man in World War II who is on the verge of execution and is suddenly spared. Blanchot switches from third to first person and back again. It is not a very easy read as narrator tries to convey the feelings of the man as he goes from certain death, to freedom. This is not only a hard message to send through writing, it is almost impossible to tell when it is not first hand. Derrida takes this short story and breaks it down to analyze each word, and sentence that Blanchot writes.

The Instant of My Death is originally written in French, but it has been translated to English. Derrida points out that there are many words in foreign languages that do not translate literally to anything in English. This not only makes for a tough read when a story is translated, it alsot takes away from the original meaning. Some The Instant of My Death does not make sense in English, and, though it was fiction in the first place, places his stories even further from their true meaning.

Blanchot, in The Instant of My Death, is telling not a testimonial, but a story of another’s testimonial about a third person, a “literary fiction,” according to Derrida in Demeure. The way that The Instant of My Death is written, it seems as though Blanchot and the narrator were there, feeling what the main character was feeling. This is conveyed through the switching back and forth between third and first person. Blanchot wrote The Instant of My Death as if he had experienced this first hand, making the story seem almost an autobiography by Blanchot. Yet, when the story is told, Blanchot is not the main character, and just basing the main characters experiences off of his own. While this is not exactly a truthful, non-fictional experience, Blanchot makes it seem as though it is, thus making a relationship between literature and experience.

Derrida also brings up a relationship between fiction and truth. While The Instant of My Death is a literary fiction, and as I previously stated, it seems as if Blanchot had already experienced it, this seems to prove that there is some truth to fiction. Truth and fiction can be intertwined to convey a more realistic, believable truth. In The Instant of My Death, even though it is a literary fiction, Blanchot laced many aspects of his own experiences, or truths, into the main characters feelings. This makes it easier to understand what the main character is feeling. If Blanchot had never experienced this, it would be nearly impossible for him to convey feelings that he would not have otherwise known existed. In a sense, creating a story is almost easier when you have truth and fiction to back it up.

In conclusion, there is definitely a relationship between literature and experience, and truth and fiction. Blanchot made The Instant of My Death a more powerful story using his own experiences. He also used his own truths and experiences to make his fiction seem more truthful, and believable. Blanchot made a seemingly straightforward story a much more in depth one through his use of truth, experience, and fiction.