The violence of power and the danger of its aestheticization by literature: L. Binet’s experience in the novel HHhH

Макарова П.А.

Makarova Polina Alexandrovna – Candidate in Philology, Senior lecturer of Department of Medialinguistics at Faculty of Journalism, Lomonosov Moscow State University; ORCID: 0009-0003-8641-5193

Abstract

This article analyses L. Binet’s novel HHhH from the perspective of its depiction of evil and the violence of power. Binet’s work is considered in the context of the depiction of evil in twentieth-century literature, particularly post-war French literature. The means by which R. Heydrich is portrayed as a metaphor for absolute evil in the novel are analysed, as is Binet’s approach to depicting scenes of mass violence. The depiction of violence in HHhH is not intended to provide the reader with pleasure, and therefore Binet seeks to avoid any aestheticization of it in his text.

Keywords

historical novel; exofiction; L. Binet; violence of power; aestheticization of victim; World War II

DOI: 10.31249/lit/2026.01.03

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