The Assembly Line: A Writing of Delirium in À la ligne. Feuillets d’usine by Joseph Ponthus

Abstract

This article offers an analysis of À la ligne. Feuilletsd’usine by Joseph Ponthus, considered as a literary testimony to the dehumanization brought about by assembly-line work. Using a textual analysis method that combines a stylistic approach with the sociology of labour, particularly the theories of Georges Friedmann, it seeks to demonstrate how a form of  delirious writing, marked by the absence of punctuation, syntactic discontinuity, and fragmentation, gives perceptible form to the alienation inherent in the mechanical rhythms of industrial labour. The primary material examined is Ponthus’s text itself, whose fractured structure reflects the erosion of subjectivity and the blurring of spatial and temporal markers. The narrative thus reveals a loss of meaning and a form of psychological suffering generated by the technical division of labour. Yet, against the oppression of daily life, the author raises an intertextual, vibrant, and resistant voice, transforming writing into a space of resilience, dignity, and survival. The study concludes that literature, when faced with the machinery of industry, can become a means of reclaiming the self.