Lieux de liberté, lieux de réclusion: Duplicités de l'image insulaire dans la littérature occidentale

The imagery of the island in Western culture shows a basic duplicity of aspects, corresponding to the duplicity of the concept of seclusion : autonomy and independence, but also (auto-)emprisonment. The examples suggested by article are literary : the island of Monte-Cristo (and, before, his jail at Château d’If), the island of Robinson Crusoe, the islands visited by Ulysses in his Mediterranean itinerary ; these examples outline the start of a definition of the insular pattern in the psychological archetypes of the West, in an imagologic perspective. The most typical expression of that imagery is identified in the founding texts of Stevenson ("Treasure Island"), Barrie ("Peter Pan") et Golding ("Lord of the Flies").