ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on three novels: Michel Tournier's Vendredi ou les limbes du Pacifique, Sven Delblanc's Speranza, and Barry Unsworth's Sacred Hunger. All three texts examine key aspects of the Enlightenment and demonstrate that this is clearly a transnational concern in the West. Confirmation that the combination of the Enlightenment and postmodernism is a volatile one can be found in fiction as well. Friday's mirthful presence becomes a critique of the hollow structures of Enlightenment civilization that Crusoe has so carefully constructed. Malte's Enlightenment ideals of liberty and fraternity are shown to be hopelessly naive in the face of the human exploitation and religious fanaticism he finds on his Speranza. However, the hope that is vindicated in Friday and squelched in Speranza is allowed to flicker once more in Sacred Hunger. Moreover, although avarice and the urge to subdue others prevail in Sacred Hunger, some Enlightenment hopes have been realized and even survive into the future.
