Discours Sur La Place Et Le Rôle De La Femme Dans Les Œuvres Selectionées De Marie Ndiaye, Charlotte Bousquet, Carole Fives Et Adeline Dieudonné

Abstract

ABSTRACT Women’s Literature is a subgenre of universal masculinized Literature. It seeks to claim a new identity for women and to redefine their status quo by dealing with issues that focus more on their liberation, empowerment, in short on their fulfilment. Through the prism of women literature, this thesis examines the difficult experiences of the woman and especially that of the mother in four novels. Textual data is collected using the technique of in-depth reading and analysed using mainly sociocriticism, constructionist and essentialist theories. These theories are supported by the concept of gender and patriarchy. The study explores important subjects such as the image of the subjugated woman because of domestic tasks and obligations towards the child. In addition, it examines the complicit and ambiguous relationship between man and tradition. It also analyses how the abuse of patriarchal privileges by man makes him irresponsible to his family. This irresponsibility compels the woman to assume responsibilities which are traditionally assigned to the man. The assumption of these obligations by the woman denaturalises gender roles and denounces the binary categorisation of tasks. This denaturalisation of gender roles and status leads to a structural crisis and power struggle between man and woman that eventually ends up in establishing sexual democracy and gender equality. After subjecting the image painted of the woman to a socio-literary critique, it is discovered that the literary representations in the four novels do not largely correspond to social realities. These exaggerated representations aim at rejecting and rethinking the status quo that is imposed on the woman in the predominantly male-dominated society. The study concludes that the representation of the role and place of woman is propaganda since it seeks to convince society to establish a new world of equality and social justice.