This thesis examines the image of the adolescent girl in contemporary French first-person novels, read from a gender perspective. It is both a thematic and a narratologic study of thirty-two novels (1950-1999), focusing on the use of stereotypical concepts of femininity. From a thematic perspective, the female protagonists’ world stands out as dark and problematic, especially in comparison with the world of the male protagonists. The recurrent themes revolve around sexuality and violence in both worlds, but they are treated differently depending on the biological sex of the protagonist. This thematic study thus shows that the protagonists live in a patriarchal world, with different norms for girls and boys. However, an examination of the ‘I’ narrator somewhat modifies the compact, gloomy picture of the girls’ situation. The authors introduce perspectives on the fictional universe of the adolescent, for instance by contrasting the focalization of the adolescent and potentially unreliable narrator with the supposed view of the adult reader. These perspectives are subversive in some novels, but mostly vague. Accordingly, the readers are often left to their own interpretation and evaluation of the adolescent girls’ situation. Finally, a discussion of virtual readers and “target readers” shows a tendency to read and market the novels in question as more or less autobiographical. Such readings modify their ideological potential.

Les narrateurs du Bel Inconnu de Renaut de Beaujeu, de Florimont, d’Aimon de Varennes et de Partonopeu de Blois se démarquent par leur statut ambigu. Ils posent leur voix dès le prologue et s’affirment à travers un dialogue avec les dédicataires dont la lecture ou l’écoute actualisent le processus narratif. Un transfert à la fois énonciatif et scriptural parachève cette élaboration, offrant la possibilité aux auteurs de se couler dans la fonction du narrateur, appréhendé dès lors comme l’unique médiateur du récit. Dans une perspective plus large, l’intrication des formes et des matières favorise la complexité et la richesse du « je » polymorphe à venir. Les narrateurs deviennent alors conteurs et maîtres d’une narration qu’ils organisent à leur guise. En adoptant des stratégies narratoriales diverses, ils demeurent la voix unique et font figure d’instance narrante surplombante dans une perspective exclusive, globale et cohérente. Mais surtout, ils combinent leur « je » conteur à leur « je » amoureux dont les interruptions au caractère plus intime permettent la réalisation. Le récit subsume ainsi le discours lyrique, le fait sien, l’espace romanesque devenant le lieu d’une mutation lors de laquelle les narrateurs se projettent dans les personnages eux-mêmes, conçus tels des outils au service du « je ». Nous assistons ainsi à une narration plus intériorisée et à la manifestation d’un narrateur-auteur qui, en tant que sujet empirique, se sert de la fiction comme d’un véritable espace d’expérimentation. Cette figure auctoriale se cristallise lorsque le « je » exhibe ses capacités d’écrivain ou lorsqu’il livre des considérations pseudo-autobiographiques semblant marquer le texte du point de vue d’une conscience. / The narrators in Le Bel Inconnu by Renaut de Beaujeu, Florimont, by Aimon de Varennes and Partonopeu of Blois stand out due to their ambiguous status. They establish their voice in the prologue and assert themselves through a dialogue with the dedicatees, whose reading or listening updates the narrative process. A transfer, which is at the same time enunciative and scriptural, completes this elaboration, offering the authors the possibility to sink into the function of the narrator, understood from then on as the sole mediator of the narrative. From a broader perspective, the entanglement of forms and materials fosters the complexity and richness of the future polymporph "I". The narrators then become storytellers and masters of a narrative that they organise as they see fit. By adopting diverse narratorial strategies, they remain the sole voice and act as an overriding narrative authority from an exclusive, comprehensive and coherent perspective. But above all, they combine their storyteller "I" with their romantic "I" whose interruptions to the more intimate style allow for their realisation. The narrative thus subsumes the lyrical discourse, adopting it as its own, the romantic space becoming the place of change in which the narrators project themselves into the characters themselves, conceived as tools in the service of "I". We are thus witnessing a more internalised narrative and the manifestation of a narrator-author who, as an empirical subject, uses fiction as a truly experimental space. This auctorial figure crystallises when the "I" exhibits his capacities as a writer or when he provides pseudo-autobiographical considerations seeming to mark the text from the point of view of a consciousness.