« Je Est D’autres » : Intermédialité et Altérité Chez Dany Laferrière et Sergio Kokis

Abstract

Comment faire l’amour avec un Nègre sans se fatiguer (1985) by Dany Laferriere and L’art du maquillage (1997) by Sergio Kokis, are two novels that are part of what is known as migrant literature in Quebec. Both explore the question of identity and alterity, one from a racial perspective and the other, from an individual and artistic one. If, on the one hand, the presence of otherness within identity refers to the importance of the other for the subject within the diegesis of the novels, on the other hand, it also represents the trace of a discursive other in the writing of the two novels. Hence, this thesis explores the importance of the other through a study of intermedial references to four paintings that prove to be significant for a better understanding of both novels. In Laferrière’s novel, the subject objectifies the other through his perception and his literary creation, and through this process, he objectifies himself. In Kokis’s novel, not only does the subject’s quest to reach the real Other end in failure, but by representing the other in art, he will eventually change the other’s identity. Acting as a theoretical framework for this analysis are Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytic studies on the relationship between the subject and the other, and Irina O. Rajesky’s and Peter Wagner’s respective theoretical texts on intermediality, with the help of which the links between the paintings and the themes at play in the novels are explored.