PHOTOGRAPHY AS AN ARCHIVE OF MEMORY: THE DIALECTIC OF IMAGE AND WRITING IN THE WORK OF ANNIE ERNAUX

Abstract

This article offers an in-depth analysis of how the photographic image functions within the autobiographical discourse of Annie Ernaux. The central research question examines the aesthetic and ethical stakes of using ekphrasis: why does the author choose to describe real photographs rather than physically reproduce them in her texts?The study explores the ontological tension between the fixed image a static capture of a bygone moment and writing, which unfolds within the movement and fluidity of Proustian duration. Through an examination of the relationship between the visible and the sayable, we analyze how photography acts as a material trace and a mnemonic trigger, enabling the recovery of a buried past. A major axis of the research is devoted to the sociological dimension of the image. We question the capacity of photography to misrepresent social reality. Drawing on the theories of Pierre Bourdieu on the social use of photography, we demonstrate how the snapshot can obscure relations of domination or precarity beneath the appearance of staged family life. The methodology combines literary analysis, image semiotics particularly the legacy of Roland Barthes and sociocriticism (Barthes, 1980; Bourdieu, 1979).

The conclusions reveal that in Ernaux’s work, writing does not merely comment on the image but extends and challenges it. By transforming the private image into a textual archive, the writer manages to fill the gaps of the visual document, turning her narrative into an auto-socio-biography in which individual memory merges with collective history.