Dalarna University's logo and link to the university's website

At the turn of the twentieth century, French society was shaken by a scandal that affected it at many levels to varying degrees and that is still considered as a symbol of injustice, miscarriage of justice and antisemitism. The Dreyfus Affair started in 1894 when an artillery officer of Jewish descent was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for communicating military secrets to the German embassy in Paris. Only years later was Alfred Dreyfus exonerated and rehabilitated, due mainly to the role of the media and the famous article by the novelist Emile Zola, “J’accuse”. The press, in general, played a fundamental role in the narration of the event and in the complex chemistry that led a confidential case of espionage to become a broad public debate, exemplifying the constant struggle against prejudice and irrational impulses that implies democracy. From the impressive volume of publications, I selected two drawings issued when the truth about captain Dreyfus’s innocence began emerging. One is by Félix Vallotton, “That’s why she was not coming out!”, the other by Gustave-Henri Jossot, “She was too naked”, and they both give an interpretation of the truth and of the reasons why it—the truth—came out so late. The semiotic approach of the drawings and of Zola’s pamphlet in terms of visual message leads us to distinguish three aspects. The first is iconic and consists of establishing the links between a signifier, a signified and a referent in order to recognize the immediate message but also the connoted signification; the second is linguistic and consists of the captions; and the third is plastic, focusing on size, colors and shapes. These analyzes of the mode in which visual artefacts produce meaning and provoke an interpretative process are made in terms of rhetoric insofar as rhetoric is considered, not only in terms of figures of speech, but as a method of persuasion and argumentation.

This thesis sets out to explore the clash between two rights. On the one hand the right of every person to protect his or her private life and reputation, on the other the right of an artist to create freely. Taking real people and putting them into literary works is not a recent phenomenon, but it is occurring more than ever in modern literature, just as there is a greater propensity to take novelists to court for what they write about real people. Obviously, people do not always appreciate becoming literary heroes, to see their most intimate secrets spread publicly and they themselves becoming the object of idle gossip. That is where the law intervenes, sometimes in favor of the victim, sometimes in favor of the artist, depending on the circumstances. The aim of this thesis is in the first place to proceed with a critical inventory of the current situation, including research into French law as well as court rulings regarding novelists sued by individuals who claim to have been turned into fictional characters. The research material consists therefore of legal decisions as well as of literary works. Fourteen chosen works of literature are discussed in the thesis. However, the main objective and core of the research is to propose new recommendations, inspired in particular by literary theories, which would allow for a better balance between opposing rights. This is all the more important since the French legal system has recently adopted a new law recognizing the specificity of artistic freedom, as compared to freedom of speech. Among the changes proposed is a law stating that a work presented as a novel should be treated as such by a court. Another proposed change is the implementation of the formal right of each person who feels his or her privacy has been encroached upon, to reply to the novelist, in a context provided by the publishing house. The most important improvement would be the possibility for the magistrate to call on an expert in literary theory to assist in the case. The function of the expert would be to judge if the text in question contains elements that identify it as a work of fiction, and more importantly, to assess the degree of fictionality and credibility of the character alter ego of the individual claiming to have suffered from the publication. By taking into account literary techniques, and therefore the manner in which an eventual breach in privacy occurs, the courts could then make a fairer and more readily accepted decision, or at least one more in accordance with the rule of proportionality expected in every democracy.

I Frankrike, men även i andra länder, har under senare tid problematiken med litterära verk som skildrar privata förhållanden, till synes relaterade till verkliga personer, allt oftare aktualiserats i såväl media som rättsprocesser. Föreliggande studie syftar till att analysera vad som sker då en person, som anser sig ha fått privatlivets helgd kränkt i ett litterärt verk, drar författare och förlag inför domstol. Problematiken involverar konfrontationen mellan två grundläggande rättigheter: å ena sidan varje författares rätt att uttrycka sig fritt, å den andra den enskilda individens rätt att värna sitt privatliv. Detta dilemma leder till frågan om hur långt en romanförfattare får lov att gå i sin framställning av förhållanden som tillhör existerande personers privata sfär. Licentiatuppsatsen diskuterar olika definitioner av begreppet privatliv i förhållande till i Frankrike gällande lagstiftning. Vidare undersöks i vilken utsträckning domare behandlar till exempel faktatexter och fiktionstexter olika. Analysen visar att rättspraxis varierar från en domstol till en annan, liksom att domarna ofta hänvisar till de aktuella texternas litterära genretillhörighet, vilken i praktiken kan vara svår att fastställa. De texter som används som exempel i uppsatsen har av sina förläggare lanserats som romaner, samtidigt som de alla i någon utsträckning blandar fiktion med fakta. Detta har i flera fall lett till att domstolarna omdefinierat verken genremässigt, ett förfarande som också fått konsekvenser för utslaget. En intressant fråga i sammanhanget är huruvida domstolarna är kompetenta att göra denna bedömning och vilka kriterier de baserar den på. Uppsatsen är tänkt att utgöra första delen av en doktorsavhandling, där dessa frågor kommer att undersökas vidare, bland annat i avsikt att utröna möjligheterna till förbättringar och tydliggöranden inom aktuell lagstiftning.