The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School College of the Liberal Arts GENDER AND JUSTICE IN NATURALIST NARRATIVES: ESPACES, MOMENTS, VIOLENCES A Dissertation in French by Deirdre McAnally © 2011 Deirdre McAnally Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 2011 The dissertation of Deirdre McAnally was reviewed and approved* by the following: Kathryn Grossman Professor of French Dissertation Advisor Chair of Committee Norris Lacy Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of French and Medieval Studies Willa Silverman Professor of French and Jewish Studies Jonathan Eburne Professor of English and Comparative Literature Bénédicte Monicat Professor of French and Women’s Studies Head, Department of French and Francophone Studies *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School iii ABSTRACT Critics have previously examined the inverse correlation between incidences of violent crime and their representation in nineteenth-century France (Vigarello, Muchembled). The relationship between the portrayal of sexual violence in nineteenth-century French literature and its occurrence in real life has received less attention. Likewise, the link between the representation of sexual violence and critical narrative elements, such as space and time, remains unexplored. Émile Zola, Guy de Maupassant, and Octave Mirbeau represent the rape-murder of a young peasant girl in three representative texts, La Bête humaine (1890), “La Petite Roque” (1885), and Le Journal d’une femme de chambre (1900). These texts contain a strikingly similar criminal act (rape-murder), an almost identical victim (young peasant girl), and a suspected perpetrator who is much the same, a middle-aged man who is esteemed in his community, and often highly placed provincial bureaucrat. As for the scene of the crime, each of the three texts relies on a dialectic between an undomesticated landscape (forest) and the victim’s corpse. Beyond their dramatic import, these scenes of brutality are referred to throughout the entire narratives, suggesting a greater structural role than current criticism suggests. This dissertation examines the functions, both narrative and social, of the representations of sexual violence in these three texts. Drawing on an interdisciplinary approach pairing close reading with cultural studies, I examine how these scenes of sexual violence are discussed after their occurrence. I analyze the description of each crime scene as well as how the narrative refers back to the crime, the alleged criminals, and their victims, through court proceedings or amateur investigations on the part of characters. A consideration of the social function of such violence includes an overview of the historical context of sexual crimes and the role of gender. What emerges from the examination of these three texts is a new narrative system that, through the representation of crime, is able to indirectly present a criticism of the French state as corrupt. iv Moreover, I consider how these representations relate to the larger goals of each author and how these texts point to a new definition of naturalism based on narrative experimentation. Such a definition allows for new intertextual links in the representation of crime and spatio-temporal constructions, in particular for naturalism the unprecedented narrative ties to Victor Hugo’s Le Dernier Jour d’un condamné (1829). v TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ...................................................................................................................vi Acknowledgements..................................................................................................................vii Introduction..............................................................................................................................1 Chapter 1 Gendered Discourses of Violence in Naturalist Fiction: Toward a Spatio-temporal Poetics ...................................................................................28 The Naturalist Spatio-Temporal Analytical Model..................................................31 Space and Time in Literature ...................................................................................34 The Belle Époque and Violent Crime ......................................................................54 Violence and Legislation..........................................................................................59 Chapter 2 Voyage autour de mon cachot: Spatio-Temporal Structures and Struggles in Hugo’s Le Dernier Jour d'un condamné..........................................................................63 “Un lieu clos” ...........................................................................................................67 Spatio-temporal Ideologies: Apprendre à faire mourir ............................................71 The Measure Unmakes the Man...............................................................................76 Écrire pour dépareiller..............................................................................................86 Chapter 3 Murders on (and around) the French Express: La Bête humaine ...........................93 Writing and Reading Violence Against Women in La Bête humaine......................96 A Time to Kill ..........................................................................................................125 Chapter 4 Crime and Sexual Violence in Maupassant’s Short Stories ...................................139 “La Petite Roque”.....................................................................................................146 La Futaie et la Chambre ...........................................................................................158 Chapter 5 Vol, viol et vitriol: Octave Mirbeau’s Le Journal d’une femme de chambre ..........167 Lexicon of Violence and Crime ...............................................................................173 “Tout se remplace”: Circularity and Crime..............................................................178 Portrait of an Artist as a Criminal.............................................................................208 Conclusion................................................................................................................................215 Works Cited .............................................................................................................................227 vi LIST OF TABLES Table 1-1: Elements of Naturalist Spatio-Temporal Apparatus...............................................31 Table 2-1: Timetable of chapter one in Zola’s La Bête humaine.............................................134 Table 3-1: Victims in Maupassant’s Contes cruels et fantastiques. ........................................143 Table 4-1: STC Analysis in works by Zola, Maupassant, and Mirbeau ..................................221 vii Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge the immense service and assistance afforded me by my advisor, Professor Kathryn M. Grossman, whose guidance and wit has been both of inestimable value and inspiration. I would like to thank the members of my committee, who tirelessly helped me to revise ideas and arguments: Professors Bénédicte Monicat, Norris Lacy, Jonathan Eburne, and Willa Silverman. Any errors in thought or writing that remain are entirely my own. In addition, all of the following professors helped shape my views of French literature and culture: Professors Allan Stoekl, Jean-Claude Vuillemin, Monique Yaari, Thomas Hale, and Christine Makward. Professors Kathryn Hume is to be acknowledged for provided advice on early drafts. I would like to salute Amanda Shoaf Vincent for her helpful comments regarding the organization of initial chapters. Sarah Breckenbridge provided invaluable copy-editing services. I would like to profoundly thank Professors Celeste Kinginger and Heather McCoy (who inspired the dissertation title) for their knowledge of teaching. I also wish to thank the staff in the French department for their patience and help, especially Rebecca Bressler, Carol Ritter, Rebecca Cross, Lindsay Moore, and Carol Toscano. To Professor Martine Gantrel, who first introduced me to naturalism in a course at Smith College. I would also especially like to thank all the students I have had the privilege to teach at Penn State. Much thanks to Kory Olson, Fleur Prade, and Luke Eilderts for their continual support and encouragement, as well as their precious references. I am extremely grateful to my family who continually encouraged me to pursue graduate studies. To Sam, Lucie, and now Henry: for everything, and for love. Introduction In Pierre-Paul Prud’hon’s “La Justice et la Vengeance divine poursuivant le Crime” (1808),1 the artist personifies Justice and Vengeance, both angels, following Crime. The latter is a raggedly clothed man running away from a male body that is lying naked in a crucified position on the ground, with blood trickling from a stab wound to his chest. Crime’s gaze is turned back guiltily toward his victim. Justice’s torch illuminates the scene; while Vengeance holds aloft a sword, ready to exact an eye for an eye. This early-nineteenth-century painting mythologizes a central concern for both the arts and the state from the nineteenth century onward: the definition of a criminal act, the emergence of a new figure (the criminal), and the role of the victim. Justice and Vengeance are clearly mythological figures, hovering in the sky, wings unfurled; Crime and his victim are