%0 Journal Article
%A Qin Chen
%D 2026
%C Berlin, Germany
%I Peter Lang Verlag
%J World Languages Teaching and Research 
%@ 3144-0738
%N 1
%V 1
%T The Thingness Narrative in Michel Tournier’s Fiction
%R 10.3726/WLTR011_119
%U https://www.peterlang.com/document/1786304
%X Michel Tournier stands as a major figure in French literature of the second half of the twentieth century. In his fictional universe, things no longer inhabit the margins of narrative; instead, they intervene in plot, character formation, and the reconstruction of ethical order through their own modes of existence. Taking Tournier’s principal novels as its object of study, this essay systematically investigates the internal logic of his thingness narrative from three perspectives: the manifestation of thingness, the narrative function of things, and the relational reconfiguration of things. The analysis shows that Tournier’s thing narrative follows a clear internal trajectory. He first grants things an ontological position independent of human cognition; he then makes things the drivers of plot and the shapers of character destiny; finally, he has things reconfigure the relations between humans and the world, humans and themselves, and humans and others. The independent ontological standing of things, their narrative function, and their boundary-reconfiguring power together shape a mode of narration centered on things. This narrative mode both departs from the anthropocentric tradition inaugurated by Defoe and offers a literary response to the material turn in twentieth-century philosophy.
%K Michel Tournier, thingness narrative, manifestation of thingness, narrative function, relational reconfiguration