Das 19. Jahrhundert wird in den westlichen Ländern Zeuge tiefer Veränderungen auf dem Bereich des Buchdruckes, der dank der Fortentwicklung der Technik ihre handwerklichen Herstellungsverfahren in eine industrialisierte Produktion umwandelt. Es erlebt den Ausbruch und die Entfaltung des Pressewesens und die rasante Steigerung der Konsumentenzahl von Druckerzeugnissen. Diese Entwicklung, die als Revolution – die zweite Revolution des Buchdruckes – bezeichnet wird, resultiert aus den parallel laufenden soziokulturellen Veränderungen – wie die Demokratisierung der Bildung –, die sich schon im 18. Jahrhundert ihren Weg anbahnten und die sich kraft des Vorantreibens und der Verbreitung einer schriftlichen Kultur fortwährend entwickeln konnten. Die Etablierung liberalen Gedankengutes treiben auch in Spanien eine neue Konzeption des Individuums voran, das Bildung, Information, öffentliche Meinungsäußerung, die eine schriftliche, gedruckte Kommunikationsform implizieren, als seine elementaren Rechte betrachtet. Infolge dieses Hergangs wird der Leserkreis stetig größer und differenzierter; nicht nur neue gesellschaftliche Schichten erringen für sich den Zugang zur Schrift, sondern auch die geschlechtsspezifischen, aus der traditionellen, patriarchalischen, spanischen Mentalität resultierenden Defizite hinsichtlich der Bildung der Frau nehmen, ihren Eintritt in die Lesergemeinschaft ebnend, konstant ab. Die Wandlung der Frau zur Teilhaberin und sogar zur Mitgestalterin der schriftlichen Kultur in Spanien erfolgt abhängig von den historischen und politischen Gegebenheiten und nicht konstant und in gleichem Maße im ganzen Land. Der schwierige Weg zur Bildung, der Einfluss der katholischen Kirche, die sozialen Unterschiede, sind entscheidende Faktoren für die Geschwindigkeit, mit der sich diese Veränderung vollzieht. Ziel dieser Arbeit ist eine geschichtliche Veranschaulichung der Entstehung und Konsolidierung einer weiblichen Leserschaft und der begleitenden Umstände auf den Bereichen des Buch-, Bibliotheks-, und Bildungswesens. / In the course of the 19th century deep changes take place in the world of printing, mostly due to the improvements of the techniques and the industrialisation of the production. But this revolutionary development, known as the second revolution of the printing, results itself from the cultural, political and social transformations which happen contemporaneously. The advance of liberal ideologies with their new conception of the individual, who regards education, information and freedom of speech - which imply a written, a printed communication form - as his elementary rights, strengthens the spreading of a written culture, so that many countries experience a rapid increase of the number of consumers of printed products. These innovations will also reach Spain and deeply influence its society and culture. The alphabetised population increases, the number of readers becomes constantly larger and the readership more differentiated. New social groups achieve the right of education and become in this way potential readers, the women being the most important of them. The traditional, patriarchal, catholic Spanish mentality changes slowly allowing them to be alphabetised and educated. Women begin in the 19th century to take actively part on the cultural live of the country and not only as readers but also as authors. This transformation does not take place continually and in the same measure all along the country, due to the influence of the historical and political conditions. The difficult way to education, the power of the Catholic Church and the social differences become for instance crucial factors which define the rapidity and the significance of the development. This thesis presents the process of the emergence and consolidation of a female readership during the 19th century, illustrated with a description of the evolution on the ranges of the book production, of the library and education system and many examples of reading materials and publications for and of women.

This dissertation explores the numerous literary representations of the femme de lettres during the first half of the nineteenth century in order to illustrate the complexities of women’s entrance into the male-dominated domain of literature and also to suggest the impact these fictional characters might have had on the reception of actual women writers as well as their omission from the century’s literary canon. The works that will be included in this analysis include: Mme de Staël’s Corinne, ou l’Italie, Stendhal’s Le Rouge et le noir, Honoré de Balzac’s Béatrix, La Muse du département and Illusions perdues, Delphine de Girardin’s La Canne de M. de Balzac, Napoline and La joie fait peur and George Sand’s Histoire de ma vie, Lettres d’un voyageur and Un Hiver à Majorque. In compiling such diverse works of literature, it becomes clear that both male and female authors from the early nineteenth century were unable to envision a publicly embraced female genius. Although almost all of the fictional femmes de lettres in this study faced a destiny of professional silence, the reasons given for their failures are split between the male and female authors. For the male authors, the woman as a successful intellectual, artist or author was ultimately impossible because of her inability to combine her female body and psyche with the “masculine” pursuit of knowledge. Conversely, the female authors wrote characters whose inability to fully embrace a public literary or artistic career stemmed from society’s unwillingness to tolerate her exceptionality rather than from an inherent disconnect between genius and the female sex. / text

In this dissertation, I examine antagonistic relationships between women writers in the first half of the eighteenth century, focusing on the works of Delarivier Manley, Martha Fowke Sansom, Eliza Haywood, and Laetitia Pilkington. Professional rivalry among women writers represents an under-studied but vital element of the history of print culture in the early eighteenth century. I argue that the shared burden of negotiating the complicated literary marketplace did not, as critics have at times suggested, inspire women who wrote for print publication to feel for one another a sisterly benevolence. Rather, fine gradations in social class, questions of genre status and individual talent, and -- perhaps most importantly -- clashing literary ambitions spurred early eighteenth-century women writers into vicious rivalries recorded in print and driven by print culture. Women documented their literary battles in poems, in prefaces, and in autobiographical texts replete with self-justification and with attacks on former friends or disappointing patronesses. This dissertation recognizes rivalry as a crucial mode of interaction between eighteenth-century literary women and analyzes the ways in which these professional women writers labored to defend themselves not just against patriarchal pressures but against one another. In doing so, it contributes to the construction of a more complete literary history of the first half of the eighteenth century by exploring how early eighteenth-century women writers imagined their own professional lives, how they imagined the professional lives of other women, and how they therefore believed themselves influenced (or claimed themselves influenced) by the support or detraction of other women. The first two chapters of this dissertation focus on Delarivier Manley's career and writings, while the second two address the entangled writing lives of Eliza Haywood and Martha Fowke Sansom. The concluding chapter briefly examines Laetitia Pilkington's Memoirs. I investigate the way these women employed the practice of life-writing as a means of self-construction, self-promotion, and public appeal. / text

My dissertation offers a new look at how women authors used popular genres to negotiate their economic, artistic, and sexual autonomy, as well as their national and imperial identities, in the context of the changes brought by modernity. As medical science and popular media attempted to delineate women’s sexual natures, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Winifred Holtby, Kate O’Brien, and Molly Keane created narratives which challenged not only psychoanalytic proscriptions about the need for sexual satisfaction, but traditional ideas about women’s inherent modesty. They absorbed, revised, and occasionally rejected outright the discourses of sexology in order to advocate a more diffuse sensuality; for these writers, adventure, travel, independence, creativity, and love between women provided satisfactions as rich as those ascribed to normative heterosexuality. I identify a history of queer sexuality in both Irish and English contexts, one which does not conform to emergent lesbian identity while still exceeding the limits of heteronormativity. / text

Thesis (M.A.)--Miami University, Dept. of Theatre, 2005. / Title from first page of PDF document. Document formatted into pages; contains [1], iv, 57 p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 56-57).

NOTE FROM THE LIBRARY: PLEASE CONTACT THE AUTHOR AT indisunflower@yahoo.com OR CONSULT THE LIBRARY FOR THE FULL TEXT OF THIS THESIS.... This thesis investigates the trajectory traced from Sarah Baartman, a Khoisan woman exploited in Europe during the nineteenth century, to a contemporary writing workshop with circumcised, immigrant West African women in Harlem New York by way of a selection of African women's memoirs. The selected African women's texts used in this work create a new testimony of speech, fragmenting a historically dominant Euro-American gaze on African women's bodies. The excerpts form a discursive space for reclaiming self and as well as a defiant challenge to Western porno-erotic voyeurism. The central premise of this thesis is that while investigating Eurocentric (a)historical narratives of Baartman, one finds an implicitly racist and sexist development of European language employed not solely with Baartman, but contemporaneously upon the bodies of Black women of Africa and its Diaspora, focusing predominantly on the "anomaly of their hypersexual" genitals. This particular language applied to the bodies of Black women extends into the discourse of Western feminist movements against African female circumcision in the 21st century. Nawal el Saadawi, Egyptian writer and activist and Aman, a Somali exile, write autobiographical texts which implode a western "silent/uninformed circumcised African woman" stereotype. It is through their documented life stories that these African women claim their bodies and articulate nationalist and cultural solidarity. This work shows that Western perceptions of Female Circumcision and African women will be juxtaposed with African women's perceptions of themselves. Ultimately, with the Nitiandika Writers Workshop in Harlem New York, the politicized outcome of the women who not only write their memoirs but claim a vibrant sexual (not mutilated or deficient) identity in partnership with their husbands, ask why Westerners are more interested in their genitals than how they are able to provide food, shelter and education for the their families, as immigrants to New York. The works of Saadawi, Aman and the Nitandika writers disrupt and ultimately destroy this trajectory of dehumanization through a direct movement from an assumed silence (about their bodies, their circumcisions and their status as women in Africa) to a directed, historically and culturally grounded "alter" speech of celebration and liberation. / English Studies / D. Litt. et Phil.(English)

In this studyi apply a feminist-narratological grid to the works under discussion. I show how narration is used as strategy to highlight issues of concern to women, hereby attempting to make a contribution in the relatively new field of feminist narratology. Chapter One provides an analysis of Pride and Prejudice as an example of a feminist statement by Jane Austen. The use of omniscient narration and its ironic possibilities are offset against the central characters' perceptions, presented by means of free indirect style. Chapter Two examines The Tenant of Wildfell Hall as a critique of Wuthering Heights, both in its use of narrative frames and in its at times moralistic comment. The third and fourth chapters focus on Charlotte Bronte. Her ambivalences about the situation of women, be they writers, narrators or characters, are explored. These are seen to be revealed in her narrative strategies, particularly in her attainment of closure, or its lack. Chapter Five explores the increasing sophistication of the narrative techniques of Elizabeth Gaskell, whose early work Mary Barton is shown to have narrative inconsistencies as opposed to her more complex last novel Wives and Daughters. Finally, I conclude that while the authors under discussion use divergent methods, certain commonalities prevail. Among these are the presentation of alternatives women have within their constraining circumstances and the recognition of their moral accountability for the choices they make. / English Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (English)

Submitted by LUCIANA CARNEIRO HERNANDES null (lucahernandes@hotmail.com) on 2017-03-31T20:54:59Z No. of bitstreams: 1 TESE LUCIANA CARNEIRO HERNANDES.pdf: 1457768 bytes, checksum: d882a25b5cacf3d2ac61140b4bfa5147 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Juliano Benedito Ferreira (julianoferreira@reitoria.unesp.br) on 2017-04-06T17:20:18Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 hernandes_lc_dr_arafcl.pdf: 1457768 bytes, checksum: d882a25b5cacf3d2ac61140b4bfa5147 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-04-06T17:20:18Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 hernandes_lc_dr_arafcl.pdf: 1457768 bytes, checksum: d882a25b5cacf3d2ac61140b4bfa5147 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-01-31 / Centralizando-se nos relatos de Amores insólitos de nuestra historia (2001, 2011) e nos romances Finesterre (2005), Árbol de família (2010) e Todos éramos hijos (2014), o presente trabalho aborda como María Rosa Lojo articula o conceito de texto com a metáfora do tecido e como esse tecido/texto também está associado à vestimenta, às máscaras e à atuação performática dos personagens em geral, sempre associada ao ato de escrever e ao ato de apropriar-se, em especial no caso das mulheres, ou de outros personagens ex-cêntricos (HUTCHEON, 1991), de seu próprio corpo. A opção pela obra da escritora argentina contemporânea Maria Rosa como corpus desta tese justifica-se pelo painel que traça, em seus livros, da história argentina e pela maneira peculiar como constrói a sua teia narrativa, como elabora o seu bordado. Ao desconstruir mitos fundacionais e questionar a constituição identitária rio-platense, Lojo propõe ressignificar o próprio conceito de humanidade. Envolvendo os leitores, proporciona fruição poética e reflexão profunda. Ao resgatar autoras do século XIX, conta uma nova história da história e possibilita demonstrar como a mulher vai construindo uma forma própria de se colocar na literatura. Portanto, a questão que norteia o presente trabalho é em que medida a autora tece a história da Argentina para recriar-se argentina? Como ela constrói sensorial e sinestesicamente a trama–teia–texto de sua própria argentinidade? Também ela teria sido beneficiária do poder curativo do bordar e do narrar (BENJAMIN, 1994, 1997; GAGNEBIN, 1985), expurgando o sentimento da “exilada-filha” tantas vezes mencionado em entrevistas e artigos (também textos, também teias) e o da loucura, tema anunciado do próximo livro? Como principal suporte teórico da investigação foram utilizados textos de Showalter (1998), Rapucci (2011), Cunha (2004), Schmidt (1995, 2009, 2012) e Bonnici (2007), no que tange a estudos de gênero e autoria feminina; de Esteves (2010, 2011, 2013), Perkowska (2006), Trouche (2006) e Rivas (2004) sobre narrativas de extração histórica; Crespo Buiturón (2008, 2009), Molina (2010), Luesakul (2014) e Marques (2016), a respeito da estética e da autoria lojeana, além de textos críticos da própria escritora. / Focusing on the reports of Amores insólitos de nuestra história (2001, 2011) and the novels Finesterre (2005), Árbol de familia (2010) and Todos éramos hijos (2014), this paper addresses how María Rosa Lojo articulates the concept of text with the metaphor of the fabric and how this fabric/text is also associated with the dress, the masks and the performance of the characters in general always associated with the act of writing and the act of appropriation, especially in the case of women, or other excentric characters (HUTCHEON, 1991), of his/her own body. The option for the work of the contemporary Argentine writer Maria Rosa as a corpus of this thesis is justified by the panel that traces, in her books, the history of Argentina and the peculiar way in which she constructs her narrative web, how she elaborates her chain-stitch.By deconstructing foundational myths and questioning the rioplatense identity constitution, Lojo proposes to re-signify the very concept of humanity. Involving readers, provides poetic enjoyment and deep reflection. By rescuing authors from the nineteenth century, she tells a new history of history and makes it possible to demonstrate how women are building their own way of putting themselves in the literature. Therefore the question that guides this work is to what extent the author weaves the history of Argentina to recreate herself an Argentinian? How does she construct sensory and sinesthetically the webtext-plot of her own argentinity? Had she also been benefited from the curative power of embroidery and narration (BENJAMIN, 1994, 1997; GAGNEBIN, 1985), expunging the feeling of the "exile-child" so often mentioned in interviews and articles (also texts, also webs) and of madness, the theme of the next book announced? As the main theoretical support of the research, texts from Showalter (1998), Rapucci (2011), Cunha (2004), Schmidt (1995, 2009, 2012) and Bonnici (2007) were used in gender studies and female authorship; Esteves (2010, 2011, 2013), Perkowska (2006), Trouche (2006) and Rivas (2004) on historical extraction narratives; Crespo Buiturón (2008, 2009), Molina (2010), Luesakul (2014) and Marques (2016), regarding aesthetics and Lojeana authorship, as well as critical texts by the writer herself. / Centralizándose en los relatos de Amores insólitos de nuestra historia (2001, 2011) y en los romances Finesterre (2005), Árbol de familia (2010) y Todos éramos hijos (2014), el presente estudio aborda cómo María Rosa Lojo articula el concepto de texto con la metáfora de tejido y como ese tejido/texto también se asocia con la vestimenta, con las máscaras y la actuación performativa de los personajes en general, siempre vinculada al acto de escribir y al acto de apropiarse, en especial en el caso de las mujeres, o de otros personajes ex céntricos (HUTCHEON, 1991), de su propio cuerpo. La opción por la obra de la escritora argentina contemporánea María Rosa como corpus de esta tesis se justifica por el panel que describe, en sus libros, de la historia argentina y por la manera peculiar como construye su tela narrativa, como elabora su bordado. Al deconstruir mitos fundacionales y cuestionar la constitución de identidad rioplatense, Lojo propone replantear el propio concepto de humanidad. Envolviendo a los lectores, proporciona disfrute poético y reflexión profunda. Al rescatar autoras del siglo XIX, cuenta una nueva historia de la historia y permite demostrar como la mujer va construyendo una forma propia de colocarse en la literatura. Por lo tanto, la pregunta que guía el presente trabajo es: ¿en qué medida la autora teje la historia de Argentina para recrearse argentina? ¿Cómo ella construye sensorial y sinestésicamente la trama–tela–texto de su propia argentinidad? ¿También ella habría sido beneficiaria del poder curativo de bordar y narrar (BENJAMIN, 1994, 1997; GAGNEBIN, 1985), expurgando el sentimiento de ―exilada-hija‖ tantas veces mencionado en entrevistas y artículos (también textos, también telas) y el de la locura, tema anunciado del próximo libro? Como principal soporte teórico de la investigación fueron utilizados textos de Showalter (1998), Rapucci (2011), Cunha (2004), Schmidt (1995, 2009, 2012) y Bonnici (2007), con respecto a los estudios de género y autoría femenina; de Esteves (2010, 2011, 2013), Perkowska (2006), Trouche (2006) y Rivas (2004) sobre narrativas de extracción histórica; Crespo Buiturón (2008, 2009), Molina (2010), Luesakul (2014) y Marques (2016), con respecto a la estética y a la autoría lojeana, además de textos críticos de la propia escritora.

Dans ce travail de recherche, il s'agit de mettre en lumière la qualité littéraire et la personnalité de l'écrivaine Marie Thérèse León (1903-1988), exilée après la Guerre Civile espagnole avec son mari, le poète Raphaël Alberti, et de montrer la place qu’elle mérite dans la lignée des auteurs de la bien connue “Generación del 27”, parmi lesquels on compte des figures-phares de la poésie espagnole telles que Lorca, Alberti, Aleixandre, Cernuda et d'autres.Cette étude essaie de faire sortir de l’oubli Marie Thérèse León, qui a été eclipsée par la renommée de son partenaire , Raphaël Alberti, lequel avait obtenu, après la mort de Franco, sa réhabilitation en tant que poète de renom. Dans cet objectif , la thèse identifie d'abord les caractéristiques communes des auteurs canoniques du groupe 1927 et, en deuxième lieu, démontre combien Marie Thérése Léon partage les traits qui leurs sont communs ainsi que des concours de circonstances similaires. La thèse aborde également la situation des femmes intellectuelles de l'époque et met en lumière nombre d'autres femmes de lettres de la génération 1927, telles que Rosa Chacel, Ernestina Champourcin, María Zambrano, dont les œuvre respectives ont autant de valeur que celles de leurs collègues masculins.Une place particulière est accordée à l'oeuvre capitale de Marie Thérèse Léon, « Mémoire de la mélancolie », laquelle révèle au mieux la qualité littéraire et l'originalité structurelle de son auteure. Ce livre dresse, à travers sa beauté de prose poétique, non seulement le panorama espagnol précédant la Guerre Civile, mais aussi, l’expérience terrible des expatriés politiques de l’Espagne. / In this research, it is a question of claiming the literary quality and the rich personality of the writer Maria Teresa León (1903-1988), exiled after the Spanish Civil War together with her husband, the poet Rafael Alberti, and of showing her place deserved between the authors of the well known “Generación del 27”, among whom we count key figures of the spanish poetry such as Lorca, Alberti, Aleixandre, Cernuda and others.The study tries to repair the oblivion into which had fallen Maria Teresa León, darkened by the fame of his partner, Raphael Alberti, who had obtained , after the death of Franco, its rehabilitation as big poet. In this objective, the work identifies, at first, the common characteristics of the canonical authors of the group 1927, and, in the second place, demonstrates the sharing by Maria Teresa of the same common features and social circumstances.The research also approaches the situation of the intellectual women of the period, and highlights number of the other women of letters of the generation 1927, such as Rosa Chacel, Ernestina Champourcin, Zambrano, whose work has at least so much value as that of their colleagues men.A particular place is granted to the Maria Teresa León's major work, " Memory of the melancholy ", which reveals at best the literary quality and the structural originality of the author. This book raises, through the beauty of its poetic prose, not only the Spanish panorama preceding the Civil War, but also ,the terrible experience lived by the political expatriates of Spain. / Este trabajo de investigación pretende reivindicar la calidad literaria y la activa personalidad cultural de la escritora María Teresa León (1903-1988), exiliada tras la Guerra Civil, junto con su marido el poeta Rafael Alberti, y reivindicar su lugar merecido entre el grupo de los grandes creadores de la conocida «Generación de 1927 » , entre quiénes estaban las figuras fundamentales de la poesía española, Lorca, Alberti, Aleixandre, Cernuda y otros.El estudio trata de reparar el olvido que cayó sobre María Teresa León, eclipsada por la fama de su compañero, Rafael Alberti, que si pudo obtener, después de la muerte de Franco, su reconocimiento como gran poeta.Con ese objetivo, la tésis identifica, primeramente, las características comunes de los autores canónicos del grupo de 1927 y, en segundo lugar, se demuestra cómo la obra de María Teresa León comparte muchos rasgos comunes y , por supuesto, el peso de las circunstancias sociales.La tésis aborda igualmente la situacion de las mujeres intelectuales de la época y pone en relieve a algunas otras autoras de la generación del 27 como Rosa Chacel, Ernestina Champourcin, Zambrano , cuyas obras tienen por lo menos el mismo valor que las de sus colegas varones. Un lugar muy especial se dedica en este trabajo a la obra fundamental de María Teresa León, su Memoria de la melancolía, que muestra a la autora en toda su magnitud, destacando el brillo de su calidad literaria y su riqueza estructural. El libro traza , a tráves de la belleza de su prosa poética, no sólo el panorama español inmediatamente anterior a la Guerra Cívil, sino también la terrible experiencia de los expatriados españoles tras la guerra.

Cette thèse porte sur l’évolution du personnage féminin, des points de vue physique, psychologique et social, dans vingt-deux romans publiés entre 1924 et 2012, par dix-neuf écrivaines issues des Caraïbes francophones, soit, de la Guadeloupe, d’Haïti et de la Martinique. Le corpus est divisé en trois tranches chronologiques, à savoir, les romans qui ont été publiés entre 1924 et 1959 (c’est-à-dire, la période qui correspond plus ou moins aux mouvements littéraires de l’Indigénisme et de la Négritude), puis les romans publiés entre 1960 et 1989 (ou la période qui coïncide avec la littérature de la dictature, la littérature de l’exil, et l’Antillanité) et, en dernier lieu, les romans qui ont été publiés entre 1990 et 2012 (durant la période qui équivaut à la littérature post-dictature, à la littérature migrante, et à la Créolité). Après avoir situé les œuvres de notre corpus dans leur contexte historique, nous avons analysé celles qui tombent dans la catégorie des récits de soi, puisque plus du tiers des textes à l’étude, neuf sur vingt-deux, ont recours à cette stratégie narrative. En nous appuyant sur les théories de l’autobiographie et de l’autofiction, nous constatons qu’à travers les récits et le « je » subjectif des protagonistes, les écrivaines réécrivent en quelque sorte l’histoire d’un point de vue endogène. Les récits se transforment en terreaux fertiles qui donnent aux écrivaines l’occasion de contourner à loisir les règles du pacte autobiographique et de franchir allègrement la frontière entre le fictif et le réel, en utilisant diverses ruses auctoriales par l’entremise desquelles elles représentent la femme noire, dans une perspective qui se veut valorisante, tout en lui redonnant, de manière symbolique, la voix qui lui a été usurpée pendant la période esclavagiste. L’analyse du personnage féminin démontre que la composante raciale demeure un facteur incontournable dans l’univers romanesque féminin des Caraïbes francophones. À l’appui des théories du personnage et d’études qui portent sur l’écriture des femmes, nous remarquons que, sur le plan physique, les écrivaines de la première génération ont surtout créé des héroïnes à la carnation pale, alors que les personnages féminins noirs sont secondaires, du point de vue actantiel. Cette tendance change progressivement dans les romans des écrivaines de la seconde génération qui incluent de plus en plus de protagonistes noires ou à la peau foncée qui sont au cœur de l’action. Au fil des ans, les écrivaines mettent davantage en scène des protagonistes qui illustrent avec acuité l’aspect multiethnique et multiracial des îles. Nous avons procédé à l’analyse psychologique du personnage féminin en nous basant sur les théories féministes. Si les héroïnes romanesques de la première génération d’écrivaines ont tendance à accepter leur sort avec résignation, celles de la seconde génération se battent avec acharnement pour s’émanciper des influences néfastes qui minent leur existence. Les héroïnes des romans contemporains vont encore plus loin dans leur lutte pour faire valoir leurs droits, en commettant souvent des actes qui sont jugés contraires à la norme. Sur le plan social, force est de constater que la race et la situation familiale des protagonistes durant leur enfance déterminent en grande partie la place qu’elles occuperont plus tard dans l’échelle sociale. Les éléments racial, physique, psychologique et social influent l’un sur l’autre et ont un grand impact sur l’issue de l’intrigue. Notre étude porte également sur la nature des rapports du personnage féminin avec les personnages masculins. Une fois de plus, à l’appui d’éléments se rapportant, entre autres, à la théorie du personnage et aux théories féministes, nous avons classé les personnages masculins selon les catégories : du bon, de la brute, de l’infâme et du criminel, en fonction de leurs interactions avec les héroïnes romanesques. Au facteur racial, s’ajoute le lieu de l’intrigue comme déterminant de l’issue de l’histoire. Pour ce qui est des relations entre les personnages féminins, nous constatons qu’au cours des cent dernières années, ces relations évoluent d’une dynamique individuelle (alors que les héroïnes romanesques comptent exclusivement sur la loyauté de leur confidente), à une dynamique collective, alors que l’on constate de plus en plus l’emploi du topos de l’espace clos comme stratégie pour assurer, a priori, la protection (physique, psychologique, sociale) des personnages féminins en question. Notre analyse des substituts maternels démontre, entre autres, l’évolution de la figure grand-maternelle qui passe progressivement du statut d’aïeule mythique à celui d’éducatrice subversive, et à celui de protagoniste qui occupe une place prépondérante dans l’intrigue et au sein de son entourage. / This thesis focuses on the physical, psychological and social evolution of female characters, in twenty-two novels that were published between 1924 and 2012, by nineteen women writers from the French Caribbean, namely from Guadeloupe, Haiti and Martinique. The corpus is divided into three chronological brackets. The first chronological bracket consists of the novels that were published between 1924 and 1959 (or the period that more or less corresponds to the Indigenism and Négritude literary movements). The second chronological bracket consists of novels that were published between 1960 and 1989 (that is, the period corresponding to Dictatorship Literature, Exile Literature and Antillanité). The third and last chronological bracket comprises novels that were published between 1990 and 2012 (namely, during the period that corresponds to Post-Dictatorship Literature, Migrant Literature and Créolité). After situating the novels in their historical context, we analyzed those that fall in the first-person narrative category, since over a third of the novels we are studying (nine out of twenty-two) use this narrative strategy. Drawing on autobiographical and autofiction theories, we find that through the subjective “I” of the protagonists’ stories, the women writers somehow rewrite history from an endogenous perspective. The narratives then become fertile grounds that allow the writers to subvert the rules of the autobiographical pact at their will, while merrily crossing the boundaries between truth and fiction. The women writers use various auctorial ruses through which they aim to represent the Black woman in a positive manner and symbolically give her back her voice, which was silenced during slavery. Analyzing female characters demonstrates that race remains an inescapable factor in the French Caribbean fiction world. Using theories pertaining to fiction characters and women’s writing, we notice that from a physical standpoint, the women writers from the first generation mainly created fair-skinned heroines, while Black female characters were mostly represented as secondary personages. This practice progressively changed as women writers from the second generation created more dark-skinned and Black female characters that are front and center in the plots. Throughout the years, women writers showcase more and more protagonists which keenly illustrate the multiethnic and multicultural aspects of the islands. We proceeded with the psychological analysis of female characters, by using feminist theories. If the heroines created by the first generation of women writers tend to accept their fate with resignation, those created by the second generation of women writers relentlessly fight to free themselves from the negative influences that undermine their lives. The protagonists of contemporary novels go even further when they fight for their rights, and often act in ways that are considered to be against the norm. On the social front, the race and the family situation of the protagonists during their childhood will play a great part in the position they will hold in the socioeconomic ladder, later on. The racial, physical, psychological and social components intersect and have a certain influence over one another, as they also play a significant role in the ending of the story. Our study also focuses on the nature of the interactions of female characters with male characters. Once again, using elements pertaining to the theories of fiction characters, we ranked the male characters in the following four categories: the good male characters, the bullies, the wicked and the criminals, with respect to the types of relations they sustain with the heroines. Along with the race factor, the location of the plot also has an impact on the ending of the story. When focusing on the types of relations that occur strictly among female characters, we note that these relations have evolved from an individual standpoint in the early-years novels (while the heroines exclusively relied on the loyalty of their confident), to a collective one, as women writers increasingly rely on the use of the topos of the closed space, as a strategy that a priori ensures the (physical, psychological, social) safety of female characters. Among other things, our analysis of mother substitutes shows the evolution of the grand-mother figure, which progressively transitions from mythical ancestor to subversive educator, then to a leading character who takes centre stage in the plot, and has a good standing among the members of her entourage