Abstract: The beginning of Mes Mémoires stresses the racist prejudices of which Dumas and his father were victims, from a head-on reference to this stigmatization to a humorous distanciation. This ambivalence can be found again in the significant motif of savagery. It is used to orchestrate the narration of Dumas' childhood and early youth, a youth caracterized by freedom and a relative lack of acculturation; this motif then appears, in a heroic and comic fashion, when the author arrives in Paris; finally, it can be found in the heart of the creative imaginary forged by Dumas with the goal of establishing himself both as the paragon of the Romantic writer and a counter-model.
