The Mediterranean Sea as a Utopian and Dystopian Space in Tahar Ben Jelloun’s 'Partir'

Abstract

The Mediterranean cultural productions have enormously increased in recent years, mediated through fiction and non-fiction, cinematography and documentaries, and many other artistic forms. Consequently, the Mediterranean Sea has been subjected to multifaceted critical views and multidisciplinary discourses. Though different studies have demonstrated the discursive potentials and possibilities of the Sea, the relationship of the Mediterranean with Utopia, Utopianism and migration has not been given much critical attention it deserves in literary studies. This study problematizes the ambivalent character of the Sea as a utopia and dystopian space because it presents illusions of reality as it projects the dreamed Spanish landscape to be far and near. It employs Ashcroft’s Postcolonial Utopianism to demonstrate how the Mediterranean generates a discourse of im/possibility premised on the transformative conceptions of future utopia through the agency of postcolonial memory in Tahar Ben Jelloun’s Partir. The novel illustrates the anxieties of journeys that are provoked through the proximity of Morocco to Spain. This study discovers that the daily multiple gazes of potential Moroccan travelers at the Sea demonstrate the relationship between memory and conceived future in the text. The gazes constitute the catalyzing processes of the perception, perfection, and production of the postcolonial hope that inspires the adventure into terra incognito. The amalgamation of individual hopes results in the collective congestion of boats that transforms the Mediterranean Sea from a “cape of good hope” to a “cemetery of drowned bodies”. The study concludes that Ben Jelloun’s text reflects the author’s artistic ideology and his portrayal of the Mediterranean Sea as a key figure in the scramble for Europe through the waterways since the presence of the Sea reinforces the dichotomy between Africa and Europe.