FEMME EXOTIQUE » COMME FIGURE PÉDAGOGIQUE DU DÉSIR FÉMININ ALTERNATIF DANS LE ROMAN FRANÇAIS DE 1747 À 1997 Valerie S
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University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository Foreign Languages & Literatures ETDs Electronic Theses and Dissertations 9-3-2010 UNE ÉTUDE FOUCALDIENNE DE LA « FEMME EXOTIQUE » COMME FIGURE PÉDAGOGIQUE DU DÉSIR FÉMININ ALTERNATIF DANS LE ROMAN FRANÇAIS DE 1747 À 1997 Valerie S. Putnam Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/fll_etds Recommended Citation Putnam, Valerie S.. "UNE ÉTUDE FOUCALDIENNE DE LA « FEMME EXOTIQUE » COMME FIGURE PÉDAGOGIQUE DU DÉSIR FÉMININ ALTERNATIF DANS LE ROMAN FRANÇAIS DE 1747 À 1997." (2010). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/ fll_etds/2 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Electronic Theses and Dissertations at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Foreign Languages & Literatures ETDs by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. UNE ÉTUDE FOUCALDIENNE DE LA « FEMME EXOTIQUE » COMME FIGURE PÉDAGOGIQUE DU DÉSIR FÉMININ ALTERNATIF DANS LE ROMAN FRANÇAIS DE 1747 À 1997 BY VALÉRIE S. PUTNAM M.A., French Studies, The University of New Mexico, 1989 DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy French Studies The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico July, 2010 Dedication In memoriam To my father Robert Sroussi and my daughters‟ grandmother Ruby S. Putnam who both understood my desire to learn. To my gifted and spirited student Darrel Gonzalez who could have done anything he wanted if he had not tragically taken his own life at the age of 15. iii Acknowledgements Many people have generously given their support, their time and their knowledge to help me bring this project to fruition. This manuscript is what it is because of them. For enthusiastically encouraging me and letting me take a leave of absence from my work, I want to thank Principal Blanca López and Assistant Principal Holly Beilor from APS. For cheering me along the way, thank you to several dozen students from West Mesa High School who followed me through Facebook. For their coordination with unflagging good will and care in leading me through the administrative meanders of the Office of Graduate Studies, I wish to thank Jean Aragon and Doug Weintraub for their invaluable assistance. For critical reviews of portions of an earlier version of this study, I wish to thank Doctor Elisabeth Boyi, Doctor Deborah Jenson and Doctor Doris Jacubek who by their positive feedback emboldened my desire of pursuing such an ambitious goal. For providing very helpful critiques along the way in this version of the manuscript and make this a better dissertation, I wish to thank the enthusiastic members of my committee composed of Professor Eliza Ferguson, Professor Rajeshwari Vallury and Professor Stephen Bishop whose valuable suggestions and kindness have helped stay on track and fed my thinking. In the course of carrying out this project I have acquired a debt to Jean-Marie Le Clézio who did not hesitate to offer his participation to my research on the chapter dedicated to his book by giving me a private interview shortly after he received the 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature. And the most important, for being so steadfastly on call giving me leads, critical reactions and helping me with the structure of this work, I want to especially thank my generous dissertation director, Professor Pamela Cheek, who always iv believed in me, did not economize her time in guiding me and demonstrated a great deal of tact, warmth and patience in order to support me through this process. My deepest gratitude also go to Michele for her unwavering friendship over the years, to my two guardian angels Daniel and Thierry who kept me working joyfully at so many times and in so many ways, and to Jemia for her unconditional sisterly love. Also to Dixon who has become a great part of my life and offered his support despite the fact he does not know a word of French. And finally much love goes now and always to the apple of my eyes, my loving daughters Anna and Sarah for whom I accomplished this. v UNE ÉTUDE FOUCALDIENNE DE LA « FEMME EXOTIQUE » COMME FIGURE PÉDAGOGIQUE DU DÉSIR FÉMININ ALTERNATIF DANS LE ROMAN FRANÇAIS DE 1747 À 1997 BY VALÉRIE S. PUTNAM ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy French Studies The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico July, 2010 vi UNE ÉTUDE FOUCALDIENNE DE LA « FEMME EXOTIQUE » COMME FIGURE PÉDAGOGIQUE DU DÉSIR FÉMININ ALTERNATIF DANS LE ROMAN FRANÇAIS DE 1747 À 1997 by VALÉRIE S. PUTNAM M.A., French Studies, The University of New Mexico, 1980 Ph.D., French Studies, The University of New Mexico, 2010 ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the exotic woman‟s character in four French novels, Lettres d’une Péruvienne (1747) by Françoise de Graffigny, Ourika (1823) by Claire de Duras, La jongleuse (1900) by Rachilde and Poisson d’or (1997) by J-M.G. Le Clézio. Its principal argument is to show how these novels have been able to escape the interpretative constraint which sees in the figure of the exotic woman a space of Western colonization and domination, a figure subjugated by the double yoke of race and sex, subjected to the despotism of imitation. The reading of these novels suggests interpreting the use of this exotic figure and the recourse to an imaginary space of “primitive” civilization as a codified strategy of contestation and resistance, and a possible reeducation of feminine desire. By using Michel Foucault analysis of biopower, discursive powers and practices of freedom in order to challenge the idea that women‟s desire is limited to biological determination of nature, these novels avoid the trap of both a return to the sources of a so-called natural desire or a pure and total emancipation. Our analysis looks at the answers each novel offers in terms of possibilities and limits of these contestations of disciplinary regimes. The vii acceptation of the symbolic act of marriage plunging woman in a private space of patriarchal domination is challenged through the recourse to recurrent strategies to stage the care of the self through the deconstruction of the institutional family by the imagination of fantasy incest, platonic love and adoption of a family which will allow the heroin to build herself through fictive communities. Also will be treated case by case the corollary questions of what is the price to pay for the exotic woman in order to escape male domination if she refuses the social role assigned to her by society and what is the gain to being isolated from society. viii Table of Contents INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER I L‟ECONOMIE FEMININE DE SOI DANS LES LETTRES D’UNE PERUVIENNE DE FRANÇOISE DE GRAFFIGNY ................................................ 29 CHAPTER II PEAU BLANCHE, MASQUE NOIR: OURIKA « LA FEMME, LA MERE DE PERSONNE »....................................................................................................... 82 CHAPTER III LA MANIPULATION PRÉCAUTIONNEUSE DU POUVOIR DANS LA JONGLEUSE DE RACHILDE ................................................................................. 123 CHAPTER IV RESURRECTION DE L‟IDENTITE FEMININE DANS POISSON D’OR ................................................................................................................................... 162 CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................................... 211 APPENDICE A ..................................................................................................................... 215 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................................. 230 ix Introduction Contestation des clichés à propos du désir féminin à travers la figure littéraire de la « femme exotique » L‟argument de cette thèse est d‟examiner quels genres de discours littéraires sont mis en œuvre quand il s‟agit de représenter le type spécifique de la femme dite « exotique » dans certains romans de langue française. Quelles peuvent en être les interprétations sociopolitique et culturelle par rapport à la norme de la fonction de la femme? Ces textes n‟acceptant pas le lieu commun qui rend la femme plus proche de la nature et la femme exotique, encore plus proche du « primitif », quel peut être le rôle pédagogique intérieur à ces discours en ce qui concerne l‟éducation de la volonté et du désir féminin à se déterminer, à s‟autoriser à ne pas plier aux exigences de la société ? Je chercherai à définir comment « l‟économie de soi » de cette femme fictive, marginalisée par son origine coloniale et son immigration géographique, entre en contraste coloré avec la destinée normalisée acceptée de la femme blanche orientée, par sa fonction réduite au biologique, vers le mariage et la maternité. Nous chercherons aussi comment ces modèles entrent en tension avec les clichés sur la race rendue esthétique et érotique. Et aussi comment ces personnages de femmes sont en danger d‟être étiquetées comme hors la loi dans le sens de déviantes, à savoir neurasthénique ou hystérique par le pouvoir médical qui cherche à les cadrer. À travers une démarche généalogique inspirée par la méthode foucaldienne, nous chercherons à retracer comment ces romans nous renseignent sur la démarche de leurs auteurs pour réinventer et représenter de 1747 à