From the Concern of Time to the Crisis of Identity in the Novel “Night Rounds” by Patrick Modiano

By merging reality and imagination at the heart of fictional components, the French fictional literature of the 20th century could rebuild most of the past incidents through unique narrations. A country’s History, from beyond its realistic and autobiographical literature and stories, can present the country’s identity and frameworks of thought. By resorting to the forgotten events and paying attention to evolutions of storytelling from beyond the sensual and historical experiences, the Second World War, like many other motifs, provided opportunities for contemporary French writers like Patrick Modiano to depict events in which there is no escape for anyone. The story of  Night Rounds is a probing of identity in blur and darkness, depicting realities which are placed at the heart of a nation’s or individual’s memory and distresses far from experience, the depiction of which requires one to resort to the concepts of time and place so as to be able to demonstrate the roots of fictional characters’ identitism or anti-identitism in the realm of memory and narration.