Othering and Selfing: Reading Gender Hierarchies and Social Categories in Michel Houellebecq's Novel Soumission

Abstract

In literature, questions of the self and the other are frequently presented. The identity politics that gained prominence after the attack on the World Trade Center in New York on 11 September 2001 has occupied considerable space in this debate throughout the globe, including in France. One example of a novel dealing with the self and other is Michel Houellebecq 's Soumission (2015). This article attempts to explore the processes of selfing and othering in this work. The politics of identity that seems to present Muslims and Islam as the other and French as the self is also extended to other identities and aspects involved in the novel. This article attempts to show, first, how the French author Houellebecq positions the self and other in Soumission; second, the type of self and other the novel focuses on; and third, how its selfing and othering processes reveal the gender hierarchy and social categorization of French society. It finds that the novel presents a hierarchy in its narrative through which characters are positioned based on their gender and sexual orientation, as well as their age and ethnic heritage.

Toxic Masculinities in Post-9/11 Islam-Themed French Novels: Plateforme and Syngué Sabour. Pierre de Patience

“…Understanding the redefinition of toxic masculinities after September 11, 2001 is necessary in exploring of the varied existence of these supposedly dangerous masculinities in different literary works. The destruction of the WTC in the United States and the bombing of several public facilities in France brought about a polarity in the ways that toxic masculinities are viewed (Udasmoro, 2018(Udasmoro, , 2020. The first way sees toxic masculinities being associated with Muslim migrants who became stereotyped as terrorists.…”

“…However, both Houellebecq and Rahimi are contemporaries. Born on February 23, 1956, Michel Houellebecq has produced a list of controversial literary works related to the existence of migrants in France, including Plateforme and Soumission (Udasmoro, 2018(Udasmoro, , 2020. His novel La Carte et le Territoire, published in 2010, won the prestigious Le Prix Goncourt award in 2015.…”

“…The third reason is, both literary works used women's body as objects of depictions although they had different point of views in describing them. This study will not focus on the novels' stories as these have been studied before (Sentana, 2016;Taqiyya et al, 2020;Udasmoro, 2018). This previous study used the novel Plateforme as a material object by analyzing the content of the story.…”