Abstract (EN)

In Dave Eggers’s You Shall Know Our Velocity (2003), a young, down-at-heel American decides to give away the substantial sum of money he has recently received. This paper explores the complicated psychological, sociological and ethical issues surrounding the act of making a gift of money to strangers in poor countries which the novel raises. Secondly, these preoccupations are analysed in the light of texts addressing the question from a theoretical viewpoint, with particular reference to the work of Marcel Mauss, Jacques Derrida and Karl Abraham. Will’s act of giving $32,000 to the poor in Senegal, Morocco and Latvia, can be seen as therapeutic as well as philanthropic, and the novel can be viewed as an apt literary expression of many of the complex issues arising from any in-depth theoretical reflection on the giving away of money.