Houellebecq entre les murs : habitat, urbanisme, architecture

The study of representations of habitat, land and territories in La carte et le Territoire from Michel Houellebecq reveals aesthetic and political patterns that inform us about worldviews conforming or resisting the smoothing that men impose on the spaces they live in. Through an interdisciplinary framework based on Ecocritical Theory, this critical investigation analyzes the imbrication of men and the territories they occupy in order to observe emerging environmental issues in contemporary literature. In addition, a geocritical framework, a literary cartography of sorts, allows me to study spaces seeped in geography and society. In Houellebecq’s novel, dwelling, habitat, architecture, urban planning and modes of living are interconnected. This article is a part of a dissertation which subject is to study the tremors that shake the walls and the territories that humans try to establish as solid and definitive.