Monstrosity in post-1990 French women’s writing: A case study of four authors Cécilia Gil Doctor of Philosophy School of Modern Languages, Newcastle University January 2016 Abstract The final decade of the twentieth century in France saw the emergence of a “new generation” of women writers who offered imaginative renegotiations of corporeal representation. Amongst these newly-created textual bodies, monstrous characters came to populate female-authored stories and presented multiple challenges, disturbing readers and social conventions of physical propriety. In this study, the challenge lies particularly in demonstrating how selected authors have envisaged monstrosity as a means of interrogating changing models of corporeal identity, especially when the subject is undergoing typical physical/psychological transformations of the human lifecycle. Literary and cultural critics have tended to regard the monster either as an insight into people’s perceptions of their time and social context, or as projections of fears and desires of the human psyche. Whilst most of these readings fail to consider both the social and individual domains where the monstrous intersects, I posit that monstrosity is most productively approached as an evocation of rejection of corporeal and behavioural difference, as it becomes visible to others and to the subject him/herself. I therefore combine a psychoanalytical approach (Julia Kristeva) and theories of power structures within social institutions (Michel Foucault) to decipher the resulting complex response of social and self-rejection of the monstrous subject. Focusing on four post-1990 French women writers – Régine Detambel, Louise L. Lambrichs, Lorette Nobécourt, and Amélie Nothomb – I explore how these authors have represented monstrosity in terms of limits and demands which are socially imposed on subjects and which are registered upon and circumscribe the body. These authors’ dual social and individual approach to the monstrous allows me to re-evaluate multiple contemporary anxieties around physical difference and bodily changes and gives monstrosity a new voice. I unveil how the texts analysed here creatively offer new spaces to re-think bodily difference and open up other possibilities for human subjectivity. i Acknowledgements First of all, I would like to thank my supervisors, Professor Máire Cross and Dr Kathryn Robson, for their guidance, support and inspiration throughout the years of research and writing of this thesis. My thanks also extend to Dr Beate Müller for her advice when reading various draft versions of my work, and Dr Sarah Leahy, the Director of Postgraduate Studies at the School of Modern Languages. As a part-time self-funded doctoral student, I relied heavily on the teaching hours with which I was provided at the School of Modern Languages. I am especially grateful to Dr Franck Michel for his seemingly endless generosity and time throughout the years, and to Dr Sandra Salin for her enthusiasm and passion for language teaching, as well as to Isabelle Ruegg Alter for her friendship. To everyone in the French department, thank you all for welcoming me as part of the team. The support of my friends and fellow doctoral students at the School of Modern Languages has also been very important; I would especially like to thank Dr Fernando González-Velarde, Dr Mani Sharpe, Dr Caroline Cordier and Gary Jenkins for helping me along the road of research and writing. I would also like to thank Dr Myriem El Maïzi, for her support and friendship, and for being there since the very beginning of this project. My thanks also extend to my friend Dr Elodie Roy for her kindness and advice, especially in the final stages of writing my thesis. Finally, I would like to thank my family, my parents and my sisters, and Maxou, for their encouragement and support throughout the years of my doctoral studies. My thanks also include Mary and Graham, for never failing to ask after me. Special thanks go to my partner, David, for being by my side during all the years of my PhD, for his extreme kindness, patience and support. Thank you for helping me face all these monsters. This thesis is dedicated to you. ii Table of Contents Abstract.............................................................................................................................i Acknowledgements..........................................................................................................ii Table of Contents .......................................................................................................... iii Chapter 1. Introduction..................................................................................................1 1.1 Encountering new monstrous bodies in post-1990 French women’s writing.............. 1 1.2 Post-1990 France: the social, political and ideological context and main trends in women’s writing...................................................................................................................... 3 1.3 Monstrosity in French women’s writing since the 1990s: selecting my monsters....... 9 1.4 The monster in theory .................................................................................................... 12 1.4.1 How to approach the monster? ............................................................................... 13 1.4.2 Monster/monstrous ................................................................................................. 17 1.4.3 The monstrous body ............................................................................................... 18 1.4.4 The monstrous, the female, and women’s writing.................................................. 20 1.4.5 Monstrosity: body and gesture ............................................................................... 22 1.5 Theoretical framework................................................................................................... 24 1.5.1 Reasons and methods for decoding the monstrous body........................................ 24 1.5.2 Revealing anomalies in the institution.................................................................... 25 1.5.3 From discipline to bodily inadequacy, and self-rejection....................................... 29 1.6 Summary of the chapters ............................................................................................... 32 Chapter 2. Monstrous embodiments within the disciplinary institution in Amélie Nothomb’s Robert des noms propres ............................................................................35 2.1 Introduction..................................................................................................................... 35 2.1.1 The monstrous and the institution: from creation towards expulsion .................... 35 2.1.2 Presentation of Amélie Nothomb: life, texts, and the media.................................. 37 2.1.3 Literature review: situating the monstrous amidst the Nothombian universe ........ 38 2.1.4 Literature review: monstrosity and Robert des noms propres................................ 41 2.1.5 Exploring visible difference: from ‘entre-deux’ to monstrosity............................. 45 2.1.6 Monstrosity and adolescent transformations .......................................................... 47 2.1.7 Transitional periods and control over the body and the subject ............................. 48 2.2 The Opera School of dance as Foucauldian disciplinary institution.......................... 49 2.2.1 ‘Les corps dociles’: controlling space to discipline the body................................. 50 2.2.2 Disciplining the body via its controlled functions.................................................. 52 2.2.3 From control to manipulation and ‘assujettissement’............................................. 53 iii 2.2.4 ‘Les moyens du bon dressement’: imposing (bodily) norms, examinations and self- discipline............................................................................................................................. 55 2.2.5 ‘Le panoptisme’: from submission to ‘fabrication’ of the visible subject.............. 56 2.2.6 Constant visibility and perpetual performance....................................................... 58 2.2.7 Dualistic roles for the subject within the network of gazes.................................... 59 2.3 Anorexic responses to institutional shaping ................................................................. 60 2.3.1 Anorexia: contemporary (critical) landscape ......................................................... 60 2.3.2 Dualisms and conflicts: between (excessive) body control and “oubli de soi”...... 63 2.3.3 Anorexia as submission and resistance .................................................................. 67 2.4 Monstrous transformations: the (failed) escape of/from the disciplined body ......... 70 2.4.1 Crossing the species barrier: ‘envol’ and/as transgression..................................... 70 2.4.2 ‘Envol’: a fantasised escape ................................................................................... 72 2.4.3 Unavoidable fall and confrontation with the (broken) body/subject...................... 73 2.4.4 Expressions of redemption of the subject............................................................... 76 2.5 Conclusion. From docile bodies to monstrous embodiments: responses to discipline in or out of the institution....................................................................................................