Date of Award
2009
Document Type
Thesis
Publication Status
Version of Record
Submission Date
October 2026
Abstract
Both Calixthe Beyala's Le petit prince de Belleville, published in France in 1992, and Cynthia Shearer's The Celestial Jukebox, published in the United States in 2005, explore similar questions regarding the place of immigrants in increasingly multicultural societies. Gilles Deleuze and Fâelix Guattari's concept of - smoothness and - striation illuminates the settings of these two texts, helping demonstrate that the Parisian neighborhood of Belleville presents a striated space dominated by State constraints, from which the residents yearn to break free, and the fictional town of Madagascar, Mississippi consists of relatively smooth space that allows for local improvisation and engenders insecurity. The stories of Loukoum and Boubacar illustrate how these two characters negotiate their respective spaces, with Loukoum creating a position thoroughly between striated majority French culture and the smoothness of his diasporic sphere and Boubacar functioning as a rhizomatic nomad, embarking on an autonomous journey of discovery.
Extent
vi, 73 p.
Recommended Citation
Anderson, Karyn H., "Smoothing out the rough edges" (2009). Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2000 - 2009. 1780.
https://digitalcommons.fau.edu/etd_general_5/1780
Identifier
FADT186325
Comments
by Karyn H. Anderson.|Signature page unsigned.|Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2009.|Includes bibliography.|Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2009. Mode of access: World Wide Web.|by Karyn H. Anderson.