Abstract

Delbo is known for the mantra that defines her work: il faut donner à voir. Accordingly, scholarship has focused on the visual imagery in the three volumes that were eventually published as Auschwitz et après. However, Delbo often demonstrates the limits to visually figurative language within the work itself. Her repeated expressions, “Essayez de regarder. Essayez pour voir,” become confrontations, rather than exhortations to the reader, who can never fully imagine the experience. This article examines the understudied role of auditory imagery in Delbo’s Auschwitz et après and discusses the limits of visually figurative language in her work. I analyze two essential elements of Delbo’s auditory imagery: the mimetic perception demanded by the guttural cries in her prose as well as the delayed auditory sensory content produced in her poetic sections. The article concludes with a discussion of Jean-Luc Nancy’s concept of the self as a resonance chamber, which sheds light on the existential role of the auditory in Delbo’s testimonial strategy. Bearing witness to extreme suffering in Delbo’s work demands a careful mental listening to remedy insufficient mental looking.

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