ABSTRACT
Birat examines Grace King’s short story “Monsieur Motte” from the point of view of King’s representation of an African American former slave possessing a surprising agency. Birat proposes an analysis of the story, in which Marcélite pays for the schooling of her former master’s daughter without her being aware of it, in the light of its treatment of space. By looking at the space of the school as “a synecdoche for the spatial integrity essential to the functioning of a racially divided society,” it is possible, in reference to Michel de Certeau’s theory of place and space, to understand how Marcélite’s movements and actions call into question the inside/outside binary relation between the school and the city of New Orleans.
