"The dreams that snuff is made of: ""Le conte fantastique"" and its lethal implications"

Two themes that predominate in la litterature fantastique of the nineteenth century appear quite contradictory and almost mutually exclusive. One set of short stories seems to indicate that le fantastique is nothing more than (sanctioned) nineteenth century pornography. Another set of short stories indicates that there seems to exist within the male characters an unconscious call to becoming an androgynous being such as the one who existed before the Great Literary Separations (Adam and Eve, the Yin and the Yang, etc.) Using current feminist theory, the dissertation looks at the female-male dynamics of the contes fantastiques in an attempt to discover if le fantastique is to be read as a desire for androgyny or if it is merely pornography. How does one genre produce two such varying scenarios for women: one which dismantles the notion of gender, and another which insists on strictly imposed and defined gender roles?

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

French

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2011

Author dc:creator

• Diliberti, Julia Maureen

Contributors dc:contributor

• Talbot, Emile J.

• Literature, Modern

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 1994 Diliberti, Julia Maureen

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

AAI9512347
(UMI)AAI9512347

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/22502