Writing and Modernity: Colette's Feminist Fiction. Lezlie Hart Stivale Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College
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Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1991 Writing and Modernity: Colette's Feminist Fiction. Lezlie Hart Stivale Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Stivale, Lezlie Hart, "Writing and Modernity: Colette's Feminist Fiction." (1991). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 5211. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/5211 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. 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Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. University Microfilms International A Bell & Howell Information Com pany 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 Order Number 9207533 Writing and modernity: Colette’s feminist fiction Stivale, Lezlie Hart, Ph.D. The Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical Col., 1991 Copyright ©1992 by Stivale, Lezlie Hart. All rights reserved. UMI 300 N. ZeebRd. Ann Arbor, MI 48106 WRITING AND MODERNITY: COLETTE’S FEMINIST FICTION A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of French and Italian by Lezlie Hart Stivale B.A., University of South Florida, 1974 .A., University of Illinois - Urbana, 1980 August 1991 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I must begin by expressing my gratitude to all of those who supported my candidacy for the Alumni Federation Fellowship and to the administrators of the Graduate School for their flexibility. Special thanks go to my Dissertation Director, Professor Katharine Jensen, for her insightful suggestions at every stage of this project and for her generous personal support. I wish to thank my second reader, Professor Nathaniel Wing, for his comments and encouragement as well as the members of my examination committee whose unanimous approval of my dissertation proposal bolstered my determination considerably. Thanks go to Laurie Volpe who opened her home to me and who has done much legwork for me. I thank my family for the different ways in which they have supported my decision to seek this degree. And finally, I express my deepest gratitude to Charles J. Stivale whose loving support and intellectual enthusiasm have inspired my work and enriched my life. TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................... ii ABSTRACT............................................. iv INTRODUCTION ........................................ 1 CHAPTER I. A QUESTION OF EQUIVOCATIONS: NARRATIVE SCANDAL IN C H E R I ................20 II. TIMELY CONSIDERATIONS: TEMPORALITY AND GENDER IN LA FIN DE C H E R I ........................... 53 III. RE-ENGENDERING PLOTS: FROM DESTINATIONS TO DEVIATIONS .... 89 IV. THE PORTRAIT’S DEMISE: WRITING "SUBJECTIVITIES" IN LA NAISSANCE DU JOUR...................... 128 CONCLUSION......................................... 161 WORKS C I T E D ........... 180 VITA ................................................ 196 iii ABSTRACT My choice of Colette’s fiction as the subject of critical analysis is one occasioned not only by the richness of her literary corpus, but also by the marginalization of Colette’s work as "natural" or "feminine" within the French literary canon. While much has been written on Colette, consideration of her personal life has overly influenced the critical evaluation of her works. I break with the prevalent biographical trend in Colette criticism by approaching seven of her novels from feminist perspectives informed by deconstruction, narratology and psychoanalysis. These productive readings reveal multiple destabilizing effects. A close reading of Cheri locates sites of repression and potential scandal in the text occasioned by an inherent duplicity between narrative and interpretation, a duplicitous vacillation that posits the scandal of textuality itself. In La Fin de Cheri. a shifting temporal framework foregrounds the novel’s complex treatment of retrospection. By comparing retrospective activity to the concept of analepsis (retrospection) developed by Gerard Genette, I suggest a new analeptic category, "instances of reflection," that challenges the privileging of "activity" in conventional iv narratological theories. In La Vagabonde. L ’Entrave. Duo, and Le Toutounier. a close reading demonstrates ways in which the female protagonists destabilize patriarchal systems. These characters deviate from the cultural assimilation of marriage and subsequent confinement to the patriarchal home by resisting exclusionary male discourses of pleasure, by turning toward other women, and by occupying "defamiliarized" spaces. Finally, a psychoanalytical reading of the auroral moments in La Naissance du .jour reveals the writing daughter as producer of shifting, expansive "subjectivities" that de-center both phallocentric self-images and the humanist notion of a unified subject by ultimately dissolving the boundaries between subject and object positions. I conclude the study by positing the extent to which these destabilizing effects involve Colette’s novels in the feminist epistemological inquiries that participate in contemporary theories of "modernity." v INTRODUCTION "Je ne pus lui dissimuler le decouragement jaloux, l ’injuste hostilite qui s ’emparent de moi quand je comprends qu’on me cherche toute vive entre les pages de mes romans." -- Colette, La Naissance du .iour There can be no doubt that Colette, whose literary career spans the years 1900 to 1954, was a prolific writer. The first collection of her complete works, published by Flammarion from 1948 to 1950, measures fifteen volumes. In addition to her novels, Colette wrote numerous collections of short stories, newspaper chronicles, theatrical reviews and letters. She wrote an original play, adapted several of her novels for the stage and collaborated with Ravel, writing a libretto for one of his musical compositions. The quantity and diversity in 1 2 Colette’s work makes any overview both difficult and questionable since the very notion of an overview assumes both an expectation of brevity and an imposed chronological categorization of works. Acknowledging these difficulties, I will nonetheless begin this study by providing a brief summary of Colette’s novelistic production in order to situate the novels upon which I will focus this study. By adapting Margaret Crosland’s framework for grouping Colette’s work into four "manners" (A Provincial 172), I will avoid, however narrowly, the assumption of a chronological progression in Colette’s work by emphasizing instead general orientations in Colette’s fiction. Thus, the first novels that Colette produced, the slightly pornographic Claudine series that includes Claudine a l ’ecole (1900), Claudine a Paris (1901), Claudine en menage (1902), and Claudine s ’en va (1903) followed by the Minne series, exemplify a writing style that reflects the taste and control of Colette’s first husband, Willy. In a second "manner," Colette gains her independence as a novelist beginning with La Retraite sentimentale (1907), and continuing with such novels as La Vagabonde (1911), L * Entrave (1913), Cheri (1920), Le Ble en herbe (1923), La Fin de Cheri (1926), Duo (1934), Le Toutounier (1939), Julie de Carneilhan (1941) and Gigi (1944). A third "manner" encompasses writings deemed "autobiographical" such as Les Vrilles la vigne (1908), La 3 Maison de Claudine (1922). Sido (1930). Mes Apprentissages (1936 ). L ’Etoile vesper (1946). and Le Fanal bleu (1949) and a fourth, meditative "manner" could include such novels as La Naissance du .jour ( 1928) and Le Pur et 1 ’impur ( 1932 ) . My choice of Colette’s fiction as the subject of critical analysis is one occasioned not only by the obvious richness of this literary corpus, but also by the marginal status of Colette’s work within the French literary canon, a marginalization