Caillois suggests that mimesis is a matter of "being tempted by space," a drama in which
the self is but a self-diminishing point amid others, losing its
boundedness. . . . "To these dispossessed souls, space seems to
be a devouring force. Space pursues them, encircles them, digests
them in a gigantic phagocytosis. It ends by replacing them. Then
the body separates itself from thought, the individual breaks the
boundary of his skin and occupies the other side of his senses. .
. . He is similar, not similar to something, but just similar.
And he invents spaces of which he is the convulsive
possession."