Abstract EN:

Our comparative study deals with the evolution in the fictional representation of the ghetto. It aims at defining the characteristics of africain american literature which reconstructs an insular space, a place of exclusion- as well as its divergences showing the diversity of literary projects, the evolution of social history and the alteration of the referential space. Our analysis is based on a corpus of seven novels. Namely: home to harlem (claude mckay, 1928) native son (richard wright, 1940), the street (ann patry, 1946) invisible man (ralph ellison, 1952) it on the mountain (james baldwin, 1953), brown girl, brownstones (paule marshall, 1959) and cotton comes to harlem (chester himes, 1965). After a brief review of the historical background, we first analyze the construction of the setting. The representation of space (the segmented city, the street and housing), and its symbolism. In our second part we study the relationship between the characters and their environment, and try to define the similarities and differences in the creation of typified characters, their various functions in the representation of the individual experience of the black city. The third and last part of our study deals with the fictional reconstruction of the ghetto as a communal space, and underlines the duality of an environment evoked in turn as a place of alienation and identification.