Submission Date
5-4-2020
Document Type
Paper- Restricted to Campus Access
Department
Modern Languages (French)
Adviser
Céline Brossillon
Committee Member
Sylvia Grove
Committee Member
Meredith Goldsmith
Department Chair
Matthew Mizenko
Project Description
After analyzing the effects that heredity and society have on Zola’s characters, we will focus more specifically on gender, and the illnesses women develop in the Rougon-Macquart series. Indeed, illnesses are presented very differently in women compared to men: sick men are often only slightly “off,” whereas a physiological illness often leads to a woman’s demise. We will look at the ways in which Zola’s writing and his male discourse reinforce gender stereotypes through narratives of gendered diseases by looking specifically at the Adelaïde-Gervaise-Nana line in La Fortune des Rougon, Nana, and L’Assommoir. This project will focus on the ways in which Zola’s feminine pathologies emerge from a combination of gender, heredity and milieu determinations.
Recommended Citation
Shiplett, Emily, "La Maladie féminine: Genre, hérédité et milieu dans trois romans d’Émile Zola" (2020). French Honors Papers. 3.
https://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/french_hon/3
