THE CONSTRUCTION OF MONSTROUS WOMEN THÉRÈSE DESQUEYROUX BY FRANÇOIS MAURIAC

Issues of domestication, minority, and discrimination have frequently put women in inferior position in society. When women seek equality, they are often framed as embracing monstrous attitudes. This study focuses on François Mauriac’s novel titled Thérèse Desqueyroux (1927) with the intention of exploring the meanings and the significations in its construction of women as monsters. It has been observed that women are depicted as monsters because their struggle for freedom is seen as a challenge to the patriarchal system. The aims of this study are to find out and to describe the influential aspects in the construction of women as monsters and how such construction creates meanings. The study relies on content analysis method and follows three steps of analysis: collecting data relevant to monstrosity, classifying data based on the themes and problems related to the topic, and analyzing the data using Barbara Creed’s theory of the monstrous feminine (2007). The study results in the finding that the construction of women as monsters is strongly correlated with the deep institutionalization of patriarchy in French culture. Penempatan perempuan pada posisi inferior dalam banyak narasi disebabkan oleh faktor-faktor domestifikasi, minoritas, dan diskriminasi. Ketika perempuan memperjuangkan kesetaraan, mereka dianggap membangkang dan disimbolkan sebagai monster. Konstruksi monster terhadap perempuan ini terlihat pada novel François Mauriac berjudul Thérèse Desqueyroux (1927). Tulisan ini mencoba memahami makna dan pemaknaan konstruksi perempuan sebagai monster dalam novel tersebut. Studi ini menemukan bahwa perempuan digambarkan sebagai monster karena perjuangan mereka untuk mencapai kebebasan dianggap menentang struktur patriarki. Tujuan dari studi ini adalah menemukan dan mendeskripsikan aspek-aspek yang berkaitan dengan proses pemonsteran perempuan dan bagaimana proses tersebut dimaknai. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode analisis isi cerita dan dilakukan dalam beberapa tahap. Tahap pertama adalah pengambilan data yang relevan dengan pemonsteran. Tahap kedua adalah pengklasifikasian data sesuai dengan tema dan permasalahan tentang pemonsteran perempuan. Tahap terakhir adalah analisis data temuan dengan teori Barbara Creed (2007) tentang the monstrous feminine. Studi ini menyimpulkan bahwa konstruksi perempuan sebagai monster berhubungan erat dengan kultur patriarki yang sudah terinstitusionalisasi di dalam budaya Prancis pada masa ketika novel tersebut ditulis.

Heated and silent adoration in the novel of " Desert of Love" by Francois Mauriac ( Passions dévorantes et cachées dans Le Désert de lʼAmour de François Mauriac)

François Mauriac’s novel The Desert of Love (1949) puts the reader before an experienced sociologist who is skillfully able to analyze the most mysterious human emotions and feelings. The writer's starting point is that people are similar in feelings but different in behavior. He severely criticized the aristocratic class and uncovered its defects and faults. The novelist presents Courege's family as an example of the aristocratic class. It is a family torn by hatred, selfishness and disagreements due to absence of intimacy and love. This poisoned environment pushes the father and his son, Raymond, to search away for emotional ventures and banned relations to satiate their emotional thirst. Unfortunately, they fall in deep love with the same woman unintentionally. She does not satisfy their burning passion as she leaves them with much thirst for love. They become like getting out of frying pan into the fire. Finally, Mauriac figures out the reasons of all problems in the absence of love and passion which represent the key for welfare and happiness. The writer reveals his stylistic skill and unparalleled literary ability in describing the whole atmosphere which leaves the reader amused and captivated in passion battle , a battle with no winner. The paper is divided into two basic topics: .Dryness of family relations 1- .Emotional ventures and illegal relations 2- The research paper depends on objective analytic approach via topic unity analysis . Le Désert de L’Amour met le lecteur en face d’un sociologue chevronné du début du XX ème siècle, un sociologue apte à analyser expertement les sensations et les émotions humaines les plus subtiles et les plus fugitives . François Mauriac part d’un principe psychologique de base dans ses études, c’est que les gens convergent dans les pensées et les sentiments, mais ils divergent dans leurs manières d’agir . Son domaine favorable était la société et surtout la classe bourgeoise qu’il fouettait sans merci pour la mettre à nu avec tous ses torts et ses travers. Mauriac choisit la famille Courrèges comme échantillon de cette classe sociale. Il s’agit d’une famille déchiquetée par l’égoïsme, la haine et les malentendus permanents. Ce climat toxique et malsain pousse obligatoirement le père Courrèges et son fils Raymond à échapper à la famille pour chercher des aventures amoureuses et des relations extra conjugales afin d’assouvir leur soif d’amour. Par malheur, ils tombent amoureux de la même femme sans le savoir et sans jamais l’avouer. Malgré leur passion dévorante pour cette femme charmante, et à l’encontre de toute attente, elle n’a fait qu’élargir leur désert et augmenter son aridité; les deux amants sont restés sur leur soif pareils à celui qui , pour échapper à la chaleur, se protège par le feu. Tout compte fait, François Mauriac met le doigt sur la véritable plaie de tous ces problèmes en l’absence de l’amour. L’amour seul est la clé et le remède efficace qui peut transformer les déserts en jardins verdoyants. Dans son roman, l’auteur fait preuve d’ingéniosité dans le style, et de capacité littéraire inouïe qui berce le lecteur et le laisse emporter par son imagination dans une bataille amoureuse sans vainqueur . Cette recherche est divisée en deux thèmes principaux : 1-Sécheresse des relations familiales . 2-Aventures amoureuses et relations extraconjugales . Dans cette étude, nous avons recours à la méthode thématique, explicative et analytique .

The Narrative of Epiphany in the Novels by François Mauriac and Iris Murdoch

The article develops the concept of “narrative epiphany”, which goes back to V.I. Tyupa’s narratology. This narrative is described as a variant of a narrative intrigue – the enigmatic intrigue of revelation with a particular “chain of clarifications, approximations, touching the content of life that is beyond human experience”. The author analyses the work of two writers – F. Mauriac and I. Murdoch to describe the religious and non-religious (secular) varieties of the narrative of epiphany. Besides typological similarities, The Sea, the Sea and Maltaverne: A Novel About a Young Man of Long Ago demonstrate genetic affinity. The comparative analysis allows the narrative of epiphany at all levels of the structure. Compositionally, it is characterized by the I-narrator of a twofold architectonic organization, when the work seems to be being written in plain view of the reader and appears to have already been completed, with the hero making his way to become a writer. Among other fundamental characteristics of the hero-storyteller are his confidence in his ability for insights and his power over souls and even the fate of other people, which is described as a kind of “witchcraft”. In terms of motives, the narrative of epiphany is characterized by the theme of the relationship between imagination and reality: the motives are verbal formulas of a cave, a tunnel, a crack, darkness, on the one hand, and light, the sun, an exit from darkness, on the other. There is also a motif of the atoning sacrifice, related to the turning point in the hero’s consciousness. The main plot collision can be described as self-deception of the protagonist, his false ideas about the meaning of his own life, and about relationships with others. The main event is related to the realization of previous illusions. The principal feature of the plot deployment of the narrative epiphany is the impossibility of “putting an end”, because the course of life appears as unstoppable, in spite of all the shocks and insights experienced by the hero, thus in the finale the horizon moves back again.

Sex, Love, and Letters

When this book's author discovered a virtually unexplored treasure trove of letters to Simone de Beauvoir from Beauvoir's international readers, it inspired the author to explore the intimate bond between the famed author and her reading public. This correspondence, at the heart of the book, immerses us in the tumultuous decades from the late 1940s to the 1970s — from the painful aftermath of World War II to the horror and shame of French colonial brutality in Algeria and through the dilemmas and exhilarations of the early gay liberation and feminist movements. The letters provide a glimpse into the power of reading and the power of readers to seduce their favorite authors. The relationship between Beauvoir and her audience proved especially long, intimate, and vexed. The book traces this relationship, from the publication of Beauvoir's acclaimed The Second Sex to the release of the last volume of her memoirs, offering an unfamiliar perspective on one of the most magnetic and polarizing philosophers of the twentieth century. Along the way, we meet many of the greatest writers of Beauvoir's generation — Hannah Arendt; Dominique Aury, author of The Story of O; François Mauriac, winner of the Nobel Prize and nemesis of Albert Camus; Betty Friedan; and, of course, Jean-Paul Sartre — bringing the electrically charged salon experience to life. The book lays bare the private lives and political emotions of the letter writers and of Beauvoir herself. Her readers did not simply pen fan letters but, as the book shows, engaged in a dialogue that revealed intellectual and literary life to be a joint and collaborative production.

Beauvoir, Kinsey, and Midcentury Sex

This chapter mentions Alfred C. Kinsey's 1948 report, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, which was one of the most prominent research on sexuality that François Mauriac associated with Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex. It analyses Kinsey and his team of American scientists' investigation of sexual acts, practices, inclinations, and tastes they had discovered among their fellow citizens. It also talks about critics who were deeply invested in the role of literature, and the responsibility of the writer who warned that The Second Sex and the Kinsey report debased the public. The chapter likens The Second Sex and the Kinsey report to the “erotic jungle” of American popular culture and fashion magazines, and to a world of commerce, sensationalism, and prurience. It explores the scholarly study of sexuality and the public's fixation on the subject that situates The Second Sex in the larger history of contemporary culture.

Ubi caritas et amor. Une lecture comparée du Baiser au lépreux et de O Veleiro de Cristal

Ubi caritas et amor. A Comparatist Reading of Le Baiser au lépreux and O Veleiro de Cristal. Le Baiser au lépreux (The Kiss to the Leper), by François Mauriac, and O Veleiro de Cristal (The Crystal Sailboat), by José Mauro de Vasconcelos, are a priori aimed at two different audiences. Le Baiser au lépreux is indeed generally considered to be Mauriac’s first important book, whereas O Veleiro de Cristal belongs to “children’s literature”, like O Meu Pé de Laranja Lima (in English “My Sweet Orange Tree”), by the same author, which was very successful in Brazil but also in France. However, the two stories share deep similarities, so we can draw parallels between them. As far as the narrative level is concerned, both of the books tell the story of a human being who suffers because of his physical appearance; Jean Péloueyre in Le Baiser au lépreux and Eduardo in O Veleiro de Cristal are rejected by their close relatives and hide from other people. They try to escape from their painful experience, thanks to the religion in the case of Jean Péloueyre, even if the latter gives rise to an existential drama, and thanks to the imagination in the case of Eduardo, who discovers in the house where his aunt Anna has led him animals who are able to talk. In both stories, eventually, the theme of charity is fundamental: in Mauriac’s novel, Noémi marries Jean and ends up loving him with a love based on charity and that can be defined as agapè, while in O Veleiro de Cristal Anna renounces all vanity to devote herself to her nephew, her charity echoing the one of the animals who live in the Crystal Sailboat.