School and metamorphoses: an anthropological reading of Édouard Louis’ literature

Abstract

This article is the result of socio-anthropological reflec- tions related to the autofiction work published by Édouard Lou- is. The French writer, born in the lower classes of contemporary France, turns his trajectory between childhood, adolescence and adulthood into a political manifesto. His literature focuses on iden- tity reconstruction that involves spatial transits, associated with symbolic changes both constructed with the central intention of becoming someone else, the result of positive identifications with the class style that he associates with what he classifies as the “French bourgeoisie”. The metamorphoses experienced by the author mix rational choices and social contingencies, perma- nently crossed by educational issues, learning and the structural inequalities present in the French context. We will demonstrate an intricate scenario, present in his literature, that articulates ap- proaches, to a certain extent, conceptual, originating from the au- thor’s training in human sciences, with clippings from the past, constructed as memory. The books analyzed, together or individ- ually, reveal the details of a project that is built in two ways. On the one hand, in the sense of transformation itself and, on the other, in the narrative – literary – construction of metamorphoses as a strategy for consolidating a place in the literary field, initially French and later worldwide. There is a set of intentions mani- fested in the books, which reveal the strategies of an intellectual who carried out a understood the academic and literary fields and established relationships with other personalities already recog- nized in both scenarios. In these networks, he organized actions in a prospective manner to insert himself academically and in the literary market and was successful. We emphasize that we under- stand success in accordance with the author’s own perspective, which is made explicit in the books.