The Treatment Of Female Sexuality

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Discussion On The Treatment Of Female Sexuality

INTRODUCTION

The nineteenth century was a time of great change in Europe; increasing urbanisation and industrialisation irrevocably altered the physical landscape, and society found itself being pushed forward, often unwillingly, by these physical changes. In France, the Revolution of the late eighteenth century had brought the lower classes to a far greater prominence, and this was reflected in the subject matter of writers such as Émile Zola and his depiction of the inhabitants of the ironically named Parisian street of rue de la Goutte-d'Or. Generations of the Rougon-Macquart family, of which the prostitute Nana is a member, are seen bankrupted and destroyed by alcoholism and a lack of education. There was a greater realism in many novels of the time, as the Symbolist writer Stéphane Mallarmé wrote to Zola: "C'est quelque chose d'absolument nouveau dont vous avez doté la littérature, que ces pages si tranquilles qui se tournent comme tous les jours d'une vie." (You have given literature something entirely new - these seemingly peaceful pages that turn as life itself turns).

Society at large, however, was not quite as ready to accept these changes. In their writing, many authors took a view of society and its morals that caused great consternation and affront. For example, after the publication of Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal in 1857 there was an outcry and Baudelaire and his publishers were prosecuted. The second edition of the collection, which appeared in 1861, had had six poems removed for reasons of taste and decency. The morals of the characters that populated his and others' poems and prose writing differed from the gentle historical romances which were popular at the time. The three texts chosen for closer study here - Balzac's Le Père Goriot (1834-35), Flaubert's Madame Bovary (1856) and poetry from Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal (1861) - contain frank, but differing, depictions of taboo subjects, among them the sexuality and attitudes towards men of their female characters, which raised eyebrows but continued to push back the boundaries of what was acceptable in print.

Each author had different intentions as to the impact of his work. In Le Père Goriot, for example, unlike some of his novels where women take a more prominent sexual role , Balzac is studying women from different echelons of society in their everyday habitat. Camille Paglia describes the novel as embracing ordinariness . The first female character we encounter is Mme Vauquer, owner of the 'pension' where protagonist Eugène de Rastignac is lodged. She seems to fit a stereotype of the matronly widow - indeed, the description states that "Mme Vauquer ressemble à toutes les femmes qui ont eu des malheurs"(Madame Vauquer resembled all those women who have suffered in life - Balzac's italics). Her interests in people seem to be based upon their income, and she appears to be a great lover of gossip. Here we see woman reduced to a 'type', although this is not a malicious statement, for as the characters of the 'pension' are introduced, including the predatory M. Vautrin, innocent Mlle Taillefer and M. Goriot himself, we soon see that, male or female, it is these types that interest Balzac. Seen in the wider context of Balzac's Comédie Humaine, as he grouped his novels, we may note that Balzac believed men to be as animals, inseparable from their environment and always subject to its values. Women therefore have a certain degree of equality and power in their relationships with men, as at a basic level Balzac sees them as being the same creatures. Both Goriot and Rastignac suffer immensely at the hands of women, as they have the upper hand in their relations, familial and sexual. Goriot is hurt by his daughters, who have abandoned him due to his lack of fortune even as the old man is on his deathbed - "mes filles, c'est mon vice à moi" (my daughters are my own singular vice), he explains, evoking a sense of the power they have over him. Rastignac too is damaged by Goriot's daughters, in particular the Baronne Delphine de Nucingen. His attempts to remain a part of her social circle cost him dearly, both financially and emotionally, but her sexuality has a strong hold over him.

Beauty and money are often linked by Balzac, with a woman's sexual power over a man often connected to her financial status. However, it is surely not unintentional that when a female character has power without beauty, she also has the gift of insight. Mme Vauquer is a good example of this; Bette Fischer, of La Cousine Bette is another. Balzac seems to suggest that money and sex are two of the main vices of this society, for men and for women, and this reinforced by his preface to La Comédie Humaine. This inhumane side of society can only be controlled by the twin moral forces of religion and the monarchy. Therefore, we see that in Le Père Goriot female sexuality is a powerful entity. It may not be overt, but it can be damaging, leading to characters' ruin, and it is often used knowingly to control a character's actions.

"If my book is any good, it will brush gently over many a feminine wound…I will have known your pains, poor obscure souls" , wrote Gustave Flaubert to his friend Louise Colet in August 1952. Even at the earliest stages of writing, the author intended for women and their concerns to be at the centre of his novel, Madame Bovary. In fact, the sexuality of the female protagonist is central to the plot. In his original sketches for the novel, Flaubert planned that his heroine would be an innocent young girl who dies "virgin and mystic" , but although he retained the landscapes and basic characters, the Emma Bovary who finally ended up in print was, he felt, more human, more believable. Thus the story of the fantasist Emma and her husband Charles, her infidelities and his professional humiliation, her mounting debts and eventual suicide, was published in 1857. Flaubert noted that in writing he had to tread a thin line between lyricism and vulgarity, and as with Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal, public outrage followed the publication of Madame Bovary. In many popular French novels, nineteenth century society was presented as banal and conformist. Though adultery was not a new subject, to have a woman at the centre of the plot was shocking. Such a woman, with all her sexual transgressions, could surely not exist in France?