French Identity in Question between Consumerism and Frenchness: Les Choses by Perec

Abstract

Published in 1965, Perec’s novel Les Choses/The Things won the French Prize Renaudot and was translated into English two years later, in 1967. Subtitled, “a story of the sixties”, it is, as meant by its author, a picture of a time of deep changes in France, on one side, and in French people’s mentality on the other side. That is why, we aim at analysing the way in which consumerism imposed changes on the French identity on an individual level taking into account the social and political framework.

Keywords

• France
• consumerism
• Frenchness
• Anglo-Saxon influence