1. Objectifs

Intentions :
«This project explores how the representation of certain monsters in the French and Québécois traditions both inform and distinguish themselves from each other, particularly as they relate to nineteenth-century industrialization. Through a comparative study of texts by French author’s [she] argue that literary monsters are most notable at moments of significant transformation in societies.» (p. v) The research also analyses how the representation of female body in literature is depicted as diabolical at the moment women leave their maternal role to go working in factories.

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
The author uses different «texts by French author’s Alexandre Dumas and Rachilde, and Québécois authors Philippe-Ignace-François Aubert de Gaspé, J. Ferdinand Morissette, Honoré Beaugrand, Charles-Marie Ducharme, Pamphile Lemay, and Louvigny de Montigny […].» (p. v)

Type de traitement des données :
Réflexion critique

3. Résumé

«[T]he nineteenth-century monsters explored in this project shed light on the social and political intricacies of both the time and space in which they were written, and offer insight to current representations of monsters in the twenty-first century.» (p. v) For example, the author explores «the ways each region treats the portrayal of the monstrous feminine as a reaction to increasing industrialization. In Quebec, the role the woman holds in the family shifts from mother and caretaker to factory worker, thus narratives about the devil and female monstrosity highlight the tensions between traditional ideals and modernization.» (p. v) Indeed, in French Canadian literature, «the corporeal representation of the devil in these narratives and to explore how the liminal bodily presence of the devil embodies the fear of both industrialization and Anglicization, which through new agency –via the conte –further reinforces the power and structure of the Catholic Church as an integral part of Quebecois subjectivity. It also expresses the strengthening role of the patriarch over the female body –synonymous to the rural countryside, as well as how the devil (being the opposite of God) affords women their own agency. In other words, since there is a direct flow of masculine power from God through the church, to the state and then to the male head of the family, any agency accorded to the female would then be portrayed as diabolical.» (p. 105)