Corps à la dérive : réduction sexuelle de la misère contemporaine dans Les particules élémentaires et Plateforme de Michel Houellebecq
How can we understand a Houellebecquian text when it evades meaning by incessant references to the field of sexuality? The sexual in the author's work is as much a textual façade as a tool for criticism. This thesis provides an in-depth analysis of the construction of sexuality in Michel Houellebecq’s Les particules élémentaires and Plateforme. The observation of an omni-present sexuality is surpassed in order to question the mechanisms at work in the representations of the body and sexuality conveyed by French society as it enters the 21st century. Employing a sociocritical interpretation, the present study draws on the concept of “social imaginary” (Popovic) to bring out the dynamic reltionship established between these pre-existing patterns and the produced text. First of all, this gives a new insight into the nature of the pornographic references that interrupt the Houellebecquian narrative, and allows us to establish how subversion works in this particular register. The characters’ relationship to their bodies indicates a sexual reduction to their genitals, wich we understand as a systematic sexualisation of individuals. This descriptive choice leads to a questionning of the injunctions and norms addressed by the text, present in the public area. By dealing with the subjects such as prostitution, sexual tourism, swinging, or paedophilia, the Houellebecquian text speaks of the world from an “oblique” angle (Hamon), associated with the construction of a double discourse. The study of Les particules élémentaires focuses on the tension between an erotico-advertising imaginary and a discours on the biological determinism of bodies for the characters, whil Plateforme is examined through the question of the sexualisation of exoticism and the commodification of the body as an objet of consumption. By drawing on previous Houellebecquian critiques and literature, this thesis brings out constructions of female and male figures, which convey an incisive critique and a new discourse on contemporary society. The lover and the prostitute, between pornographic representation and lyrical sublimation, are redefined in this context.
Houellebecq Plateforme Les particules élémentaires Sociocritical Irony Social imaginary Discourse analysis Sexuality Porn studies