Abstract

Casablanca announces its critical engagement with cosmopolitanism in the first of two three-way interactions among Captain Renault, the chief French colonial administrator in Casablanca; Major Strasser, a visiting Nazi commander; and Rick Blaine, the owner/operator of Rick’s Café Américain, a popular nightclub and backroom casino in the city:What is your nationality?I am a drunkard.That makes Rick a citizen of the world.Throughout the film, it is the principle function of the Renault character to describe and comment upon Rick’s disposition in respect to matters both political and personal, often drawing illuminating parallels between the two.1 “Rick,” Renault continues, seeking to assure the suspicious Nazis that ..