City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 2-2020 Out of Home: Social Class in Women’s Writing, 1950–2016 Lisa M. Karakaya The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/3565 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] OUT OF HOME: SOCIAL CLASS IN WOMEN’S WRITING 1950 – 2016 by LISA KARAKAYA A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in French in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2020 © 2020 LISA KARAKAYA All Rights Reserved ii Out of Home: Social Class in Women’s Writing 1950 - 2016 by Lisa Karakaya This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in French in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. 01/09/2020__________________ Domna C. Stanton___________ Date Chair of Examining Committee 01/11/2020__________________ Maxime Blanchard___________ Date Executive Officer Supervisory Committee: Domna C. Stanton Francesca Canadé Sautman Maxime Blanchard Sam Di Iorio THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii ABSTRACT Out of Home: Social Class in Women’s Writing 1950 – 2016 by Lisa Karakaya Advisor: Domna C. Stanton The subject of social class has been insufficiently studied in contemporary French and Francophone women authors’ writing. With the exception of Annie Ernaux’s work, women authors’ portrayal of social class is often overlooked in favor of studies that focus solely on women’s subjectivity or autobiographical narrative, ignoring critique of social inequalities. Out of Home: Social Class in Women’s Writing 1950 – 2016 employs an intersectional feminist and critical race theory methodology to examine social class in relation to gendered and racial subjugations in the work of selected French and francophone women authors across diverse regions. The cartography of the dissertation consists first of hexagonal France, with an examination of Annie Ernaux’s texts; second, in the opening two chapters, the colonial societies of French Indonesia and Algeria as depicted by narrators in the position of colonizers; third, in the last two chapters, post- colonial or settler societies of Guadeloupian and Québécois texts, featuring colonized or marginalized viewpoints. The conclusion returns briefly to hexagonal France, then opens to a more globalized perspective. This study focuses on social class and inequality, marginalization, and home and exile; as such, it is fundamentally concerned with questions of exclusion and inclusion. My analysis affirms textual mechanisms of iv exclusion and elision in regards to class, race, and gender. Often, the texts studied depict the ways in which these subjugations reinforce one another. Out of Home reveals social class to be mutable rather than static, and associated with home and a sense of self, appearing in conjunction with inequalities of race and gender. Characters might experience social class as mutable, that is, they can move into a higher social class, but struggle with feeling “out of place,” “between classes,” or “out of home.” I conclude that, as portrayed, contemporary society has reactivated inequalities present in colonial societies, whether in Guadeloupian novels’ portrayal of hierarchies of race or women narrators’ inability to seize agency in novels of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. For the women characters in these texts, agency and ability to articulate and resist social norms that constrain them does not increase during the period studied, but rather decreases, proves to be in vain, or proves to be impossible. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Portions of Chapters 1 and 2 were published in “A Troubling Absence: Home, exile, and the search for female identity in the works of Marie Cardinal and Marguerite Duras.” Nouvelles francographies, Vol. 5, Numéro Spécial Actes, December 2015. Portions of Chapter 2 were published in “Hiraeth: Marie Cardinal’s Nostalgia and the Question of Class.” Women in French Studies special issue Fluidity and Femininity, December 2017. Portions of Chapter 3 were published in “Être une femme sur terre:” resistance in Pluie et vent sur Télumée Miracle,” MMLA Journal, Vol. 52, No. 1. I thank The Graduate Center for its financial support, including the Enhanced Chancellor’s Fellowship, the Writing Across the Curriculum Fellowship, and a DSRG Travel Grant, which allowed me to travel to Québec for research on Chapter 4. A writing project is never accomplished alone. I am most grateful to the following people, without whom I could not have completed this dissertation: My advisor, Domna C. Stanton, who generously offered me the attention, care, and structure essential to complete a long-term project. My committee members, Sam Di Iorio, Francesca Sautman, and Maxime Blanchard, who kindly gave their time and attention to this dissertation. In particular, I thank Maxime Blanchard, whose class on Québécois literature inspired Chapter 4, and whose scholarship greatly influenced my understanding of cultural marginalization. My friend and colleague, Mariana Goycoechea, whose insightful recommendations and exemplary scholarship guided me in the theoretical framework of Chapter 3. I also thank her profoundly for her friendship and support. My husband, Ilker Karakaya, who carried the financial burden of my studies. vi My son, Erencan Karakaya, who is my joy. Selma Karakaya and Pinar Karakaya, my mother- and sister-in-law, who cared for my son every summer, which allowed me to research and write 2016 – 2018 while I was teaching full-time. My colleagues, Amy Martin and Antoinette J. Williams-Tutt, who spent many writing sessions with me, and who offered friendship, support, and encouragement. Those who have inspired me with their scholarship and generosity. In particular, I am grateful to my undergraduate professors and mentors: Dr. Ellen Justice- Templeton, Dr. Marie-Claire Morellec, Dr. Maria Rebbert, Dr. Carmen Wyatt- Hayes, and Dr. Sandra Puvogel. My family and friends, for their support. And one who shall remain unnamed. vii CONTENTS Table of Contents…………………………………………………………………….viii Introduction…………………………………………………………………………….1 Chapter 1: “Vampirisme colonial”: Duras’s French Indochina………………………30 Chapter 2: Hiraeth, Nostalgia and Home: Race and Class in Marie Cardinal’s Work…………………………………………………………………………..86 Chapter 3: Home as Resistance – Women of Guadeloupe: Schwarz-Bart, Condé, and Warner-Vieyra…………………………………………………………...135 Chapter 4: Langue en exil: Inequality and Marginalization in the Works of Noël and Mavrikakis.................................................................................................187 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………236 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………….252 viii Introduction Overview of Dissertation and Social Class This dissertation presents a cartography of French and francophone literatures of diverse regions, mapping similar issues that appear in different traditions of literature: social class, intersected with gender and race; and home, language, and agency, all of which relate to social inequality in the corpus of texts studied. These themes are associated with the question of exclusion: who is excluded, who is included, and who is marginalized, both in these texts and in the societies portrayed. From the post-World War II period to the present day, women writers from the former French colonial empire – French Indonesia, French Algeria, enslaved Guadeloupe (now a département), and the French settlement in Canada (Québec) – portray social class, in various ways, as associated with home. As a place of belonging, identity, security, and most importantly inclusion and exclusion, home emerges in these texts as intimately associated with mechanisms that maintain hierarchies or indifference to others’ lives and identities.1 My cartography consists of the following: first, hexagonal France in this introduction with an examination of Annie Ernaux’s texts, which depict social class associated with home. Second, in the opening two chapters, I shift to the colonial societies of French Indonesia and Algeria as depicted by narrators in the position of colonizers. In the last two chapters, the focus changes to post-colonial or settler societies and to Guadeloupian and Québécois texts featuring colonized or marginalized viewpoints. The conclusion returns briefly to hexagonal France, and opens to a more globalized perspective. This arrangement should not be understood as centering the 1 There is no word in French for “home” – it is inadequately translated as “chez soi” or as “foyer.” The English word home evokes several meanings, which I explain later in this introduction. 1 literature of hexagonal France, but as another cartography illustrating the marginalized positions of francophone societies of the former colonial empire in relation to the hexagon; and the continuing subordination of literatures cast as outside the Western tradition. I examine the portrayal of social class intersected with inequalities of race and gender in the works of Marguerite Duras (Un barrage contre le Pacifique, 1950, L’amant, 1984, L’amant de la Chine du nord, 1994), Marie Cardinal (La clé sur la porte 1972, Les mots pour le dire 1975, Autrement dit,