Gender Constraints and the Search for Sexual Identity: ‘L’enfant de sable’, Rebecca Jäger and Alistair Houdayer

Abstract

This article is a reading of body and sexuality in two of Ben Jelloun’s works, namely L’enfant de sable and La nuit sacrée. The sexuality of the child, the sexual body of the woman, the role of the mother, and finally, and most importantly, the stabilizing effect of the adult biological exchange zone. A synthesis considered from the point of view of madness/reason based on religious and social discourse. This is a decomposition of the social construction of sexuality in the protagonist of Ben Jelloun’s diptych in the light of the violent character that the religious and social discourse could carry. In the first part, we plan to briefly place sexuality in French-speaking Maghrebi literature and its introduction into the Maghrebi literary field. We then introduce three dimensions of gender proposed by Rebecca Jäger, a German trans journalist. We use a documentary directed by Olaf Müller to illustrate two experiences of overcoming the binary model of human sexuality. The second part of the article will detail the question of sexuality for both Ben Jelloun and his protagonist. The sexuality in question will be discussed in its broadest relationship to religion, reason, and more closely to madness.