French Theses

A couple of French Brontë-related recent theses:

L’expression Féminine dans les romans d’Anne Brontëby Nourchen Sadkaoui
Supervisor: Alain Jumeau
Ecole doctorale Civilisations, cultures, littératures et sociétés (Paris), 2012

Anne Brontë makes use of her talents as a novelist in view of exploring the realm of the feminine. This work proposes to study the different manifestations and usages of feminine expression in her novels. To start with, her first novel is to be read as an example of a feminine Bildungsroman describing the journey of formation, of maturity and fulfillment of the heroine who evolves from a passive, silent and shy young woman to a self-confident and eloquent wife, mother, educator and writer. The second chapter explores the metaphor of embedding in relation to the second novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. The chapter examines the different levels of discourse overlapping in the narrative structure in order to illustrate the complex relationships between the sexes in the model of patriarchal society the novel presents. The third and last chapter studies the creative identity attributes of the heroine. Her ingenuity manifests itself in her writings, her paintings, her educational skills and her empathy, not only allowing her to survive and create in a hostile environment but also her close friends to benefit from her personal experience. A review of the studies on the author shows that the theme of feminine expression has not received much critical attention. This thesis, presenting new paths of research, offers a synthetic vision of the question.

Intrication textuelle, et déchiffrement du sens dans l'oeuvre de Charlotte Brontëby Gaïane Hanser
Supervisor: Jean-Pierre Naugrette
École doctorale Études anglophones, germanophones, et européennes (Paris), 2012

The Brontës' childhood was informed by their literary games: they created an imaginary world where they staged the confrontations between their heroes, real or fictitious, and which they used as a setting for numerous tales. A close study of these early writings sheds light on the formation, in Charlotte Brontë's work, of a dialogical mode of writing, which remains present throughout her later novels. Her new enunciative situation as she submits her work to the public at large leads to a shift in her perception of her readership: her new critics do not dissociate in her the woman from the writer, and assess her texts accordingly. This results in the creation of two Model Readers, each of whom is given a specific role within the frame of a same text. Brontë's narrators ask for the leniency of the Model Reader / Judge, at the same times as they call upon the Model Reader / Interpretant's aptitude at deciphering signs. This thesis aims at identifying and analysing the narrative strategies resulting from the creation of a double Model Reader, which help understand the meaning of the novels. These strategies include the insertion within the text of secondary texts or intertextual references, as well as the semanticisation of non-textual elements, such as visual arts or accomplishments. This intrication of various cyphers creates a locus of equivocation and undecidability, which must be invested by the empirical readership.