The thesis is a discourse analysis of the penultimate novel by Michel Houellebecq The Map and the Territory from the theoretical perspectives of sociology and literary theory. As such, it presupposes mimeticism of the analysed novel and in accordance with this assumption discusses it as a document of the present time. In the thesis it is thus argued that (in the post-Fordist mode of production) the engagement in intimate partner relationships is strongly influenced by market logic, which through the hierarchisation in production and the resulting unequal appropriation of goods determines an individual's place also in the market of partnership. The archaeological view employed in the text connects all social relations, including the intimate ones, with the social relations between things and thus understands the essence of these relationships (as well as the essence of individuals who are a part of them) merely as remnants of a specific material culture.
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