1. Objectifs

Intentions :
Proposer une réflexion, dans une perspective féministe, sur le rôle tenu par l’infanticide dans deux oeuvres de romancières québécoises.

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
2 romans L’Obéissance de Suzanne Jacob (1991) et La Fissure de Aline Chamberland (1985).

Type de traitement des données :
Analyse de contenu

3. Résumé

« Over the past twenty yearsm the mother-daughter relationship, neglected or denigrated in male cultural productions, has been reread and reinterpreted as the key to female development and identity. It has been extolled as a model for female solidarity, love between women, physical and spiritual bliss. Yet perhaps no other relationship is so fraught with ambivalence, contradiction, and denial. The very closeness of the mother-daughter bond means that any conflict between the two is tragic, even life-threatening. [...] In this article, I will be looking at two novels of infanticide, surely the most extreme form of a mother-daughter relationship gone wrong. A desperate mother repeatedly stabs her infant daughter; another orders her eight-year-old girl to drown herselfin the icy river near her family home. Before turning to the novels however, I will be locating infanticide within both the literary context of Quebec women’s writing, more specifically with reference to matricide, and the sociopolitical framework a feminsit reading requires. » (p. 195)