L’Espace d’un cillement de Jacques Stephen Alexis ou le politique débordé

Abstract

The paradoxical description of the prostitutes in L’Espace d’un cillement, articulated to a poetics of theatricality, sets up a praise of the poetic creation. In this novel, an epiphany of the senses occurs, an assumption despite the moral degradation of the described reality. Alexis exploits the whole semantic spectrum of the term ‘pass’ and makes of the circulation of bodies an allegory of the democratic ideal of fraternity, which can only come about through a transformation of the relations between men and women, in the sense of equality and sharing. The body and sexuality are thus rehabilitated through a blossoming of the senses, characterizing the Caribbean cultures, but the erotic and the political echo each other: Alexis’ aesthetic links social realism and marvelous realism, refusing art for art’s sake as much as arid intellectualism.

Keywords

• prostitution
• politics
• senses
• intimate
• body
• social realism