L’Apiculteur entre représentation sociale et fonction symbolique dans deux romans contemporains : Henri Vincenot, Le Maître des abeilles (1989) et Maxence Fermine, L’Apiculteur (2002)

Abstract

Two contemporary novels dealing with the beekeeper’s social type, Le Maître des abeilles by Henri Vincenot and Maxence Fermine’s L’Apiculteur, reshape the social representations which are linked with this character in an original way. We shall show how each novel proceeds to join external images to the collective ideas we commonly build to figure out the beekeeper’s tasks (either congruent or not with the reality of this job) in order to create a new literary universe. The representations (or even stereotypes) of the adventurer, for instance, or of the religious officiant give a new sense to the reading according to the poetical choice of the two writers.