Cycnos | Volume 32.1 - Traversée d'une œuvre : Crossing the river de Caryl Phillips | IV. Rapprochements théoriques

Résumé :

International audience

Phillips's narratives are generally known for their fragmentation, ambiguity, displaced characters, complex geographical and social passages, and intertextual allusions. Crossing the River similarly embodies fragmentation in its substance and narrative form( s ), and it also features transgressors and travelers who geographically and socially cross borders and undergo deep transformations. Despite the presence of this ambivalence, the concept of « rhizomorphous gaze » which appears in the title of this paper may be considered as relevant to the analysis of such heterogeneous spatiotemporality and of the dense modus operandi of Caryl Phillips whose primary concern, geocritically speaking, has been the nonequilibrium of deterritorialization. This paper also argues that Phillipsian fragmentation is « a rhizomatic patchwork, » and geographical and social passages are merely « smoothing » movements from « striations » of « the state apparatus, » and displaced characters tum into border-crossing « nomads » for whom displacement is an « intermezzo » in a geophilosophical reading.

Mots-clés : Caryl Phillips, Crossing the River, geocriticism, geophilosophy, nomads, nonequilibrium of deterritorialization, rhizomes, rhizomatic narratives -rhizomorphous gaze

Date de publication : 2016