Images of Women Mentoring Women in French Literature 1650-1750
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IMAGES OF WOMEN MENTORING WOMEN IN FRENCH LITERATURE 1650-1750 Ashlee S. Headrick A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Romance Languages (French). Chapel Hill 2006 Approved by Advisor: Carol Sherman Reader: Nina Furry Reader: Hannelore Jarausch Reader: Hassan Melehy Reader: Monica Rector © 2006 Ashlee S. Headrick ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT ASHLEE S. HEADRICK: Images of Women Mentoring Women in French Literature 1650- 1750 (Under the direction of Carol Sherman) This study considers the representation of ways in which female characters help one another in prose and plays written in France between 1650 and 1750. The concept of mentoring, an idea whose roots in western thought may be traced to ancient Greece, is applied to mother-daughter relationships as well as to friendships in an effort to explore how French literature of this period portrayed women negotiating the obstacles they faced during the Ancien Régime. Six primary texts were selected for their rich development of female characters’ relationships in stories of young women coming of age. Included are novellas Célinte (1661) and Mathilde (1667) by Madeleine de Scudéry, plays La double inconstance (1723) and La mère confidente (1735) by Pierre de Marivaux, and Françoise de Graffigny’s novel Lettres d’une Péruvienne (1747) and her play Cénie (1750). iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project has not been a solitary endeavor. I have been blessed by many wonderful mentors who have helped me bring it to fruition. Throughout the writing and imagining of this dissertation, I have been privileged to be guided and supported by the insight, expertise, and encouragement of Dr. Carol Sherman. For her countless contributions to this endeavor, I am most grateful. I thank Drs. Nina Furry, Stirling Haig, Hannelore Jarausch, Edward Montgomery, Hassan Melehy, Yves de la Quérière, and Monica Rector of the Department of Romance Languages at UNC-CH, and Dr. Michèle Longino of Duke University, for their valued participation at various stages of the project. I also would like to acknowledge faculty at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, for their encouragement and challenge during my years with them, especially Drs. Karen Levy, Les Essif, and John Romeiser of the Department of Modern Languages and the late Dr. Jack Reese, Chancellor Emeritus and Professor of English. Conversations with friends and colleagues have been invaluable to me at various stages in helping me identify sources and clarify thoughts. I especially thank Franck Dalmas and Briana Lewis, companions on this journey, and Dr. Scott Juall of the University of North Carolina, at Wilmington, for his helpful questions. The support of those in my personal life has been no less important than that of professional colleagues and mentors. From the decision to pursue advanced degrees to the writing of these pages, my husband Jon David has offered unflagging support, patience, and good humor, and I am most grateful for his generosity. Finally, I thank those who have nourished my desire to learn, helped me do so, inspired, and encouraged me throughout my life: my parents, Alvin and Billiesue Sanders. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES.............................................................................................................. vi LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................ vii Chapter 1 Introduction............................................................................................................. 1 2 An Overview of Women’s Lives in Ancien Régime France .................................. 11 3 Mentoring: Terms, Myths, and Models .................................................................. 35 4 In Hekate’s Footsteps: Female Mentoring in Madeleine de Scudéry’s First Two Novellas.............................................................. 60 5 Female Mentoring in Marivaux’s La double inconstance and La mère confidente............................................................................ 91 6 Graffigny’s Other Heroines: Céline in Lettres d’une Péruvienne and Orphise in Cénie ................................................................. 117 7 Conclusions............................................................................................................. 152 WORKS CITED ................................................................................................................. 162 v LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1: Structural Possibilities ....................................................................................... 56 Table 3.2: Power and Balance ............................................................................................ 58 Table 4.1: Functions of Lysiane (M1) Mentoring Célinte (H) ........................................... 64 Table 4.2: Functions of Mélise (M2) Mentoring Célinte (H) ............................................. 65 Table 4.3: Functions of Clarinte (M3) Mentoring Célinte (H) ........................................... 68 Table 4.4: Functions of Constance (M1) Mentoring Mathilde (H) .................................... 77 Table 4.5: Functions of Laure (M2) Mentoring Mathilde (H)............................................ 79 Table 4.6: Functions of Théodore (M3) Mentoring Mathilde (H)...................................... 82 Table 4.7: Functions of Lucinde (M4) Mentoring Mathilde (H)........................................ 84 Table 5.1: Flaminia (M) as Mentor to Silvia (H), the heroine............................................ 94 Table 5.2: Functions of Madame Argante (M) Mentoring Angélique (H)......................... 108 Table 6.1: Céline (M) as Mentor to Zilia (H), the heroine ................................................. 120 Table 6.2: Functions of Orphise (M) in Mentoring Cénie (H) ........................................... 135 vi LIST OF FIGURES Diagram 3.1: Athena-Mentor as Agent of the Olympic Deities ......................................... 44 Diagram 3.2: Company-selected Mentor as its Agent........................................................ 46 vii Chapter 1 Introduction Overview A society’s stories reflect what is important. Through the words of tales told, acted, and written, we gain insight into what has inspired, troubled, and amused those separated from us by time and place. Writings from France during the Ancien Régime are no different. In prose and plays from seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France, many stories-- chronicles of romance, displacement, familial conflicts, and journeys-- include a figure who could be overlooked as part of the background but who is absolutely essential. In narratives of young women’s coming of age, there is often another woman who is young or old, related or not to the heroine, who helps her. Thanks to her guide, each of these young women finds her way through a difficulty and embarks upon a new stage of life. Choice of texts There are several works from the period that explore the theme of women advising other women. Probably the most famous are La Princesse de Clèves (1678), in which the advice of Madame de Chartres to her daughter influences the young woman long after her mother’s death, and the letters of Madame de Sévigné to her daughter.1 The dynamics 1 The letters to her daughter began in 1671 following Madame de Grignan’s marriage and departure from Paris to Provence and continued until Madame de Sévigné’s death in 1694. The first publication of her writing was in 1697, her correspondence with her cousin Bussy-Rabutin. The first edition of her letters including those to her daughter appeared in 1727 (Raffalli 34). between those mothers and their daughters are not explored in detail here. We do not see in Lafayette’s novel or Sévigné’s letters the give-and-take in relationships over time that determined the selection of these primary texts. The influence of Madame de Chartres upon her daughter is powerful and lasting but one-dimensional. She marries her to an appropriate husband with little input from the young woman, threatens her with the possibility of troubling her mother’s peace in the afterlife, turns away, and dies. We never see her vulnerability or lack of power--a thread that is important in each of the primary texts in this study--nor do we witness negotiation between mother and daughter that shows both of their perspectives. Madame de Sévigné gives her daughter a tremendous amount of advice and affection, but it is difficult to compare her letters with texts contemporary to hers for two reasons. First, her correspondence with her daughter was not intended to be read as fiction. While she was certainly conscious of writing and reading for an audience,2 the main characters--she and her daughter--were real people, and it seems inconsistent to compare them to texts in which the author and protagonist are separate. Both La Princesse de Clèves and Sévigné’s letters essentially give the mother’s voice with no reply from the daughter. Lafayette wrote her novel in that manner, and Sévigné’s granddaughter destroyed the letters from her mother (Sévigné’s daughter), so that the younger woman’s responses are lost to us. In the eighteenth century, we again witness a woman giving advice to younger women in the essays of Madame de Lambert (1724) and later, in the corrosive influence of the marquise de Merteuil upon CécileVolanges in Les Liaisons dangereuses