Les Soeurs Deblois de Louise Tremblay d’Essiambre qui a connu un succès inespéré fait l’objet de cette thèse. Le but de cette étude consiste à expliquer le succès de cette saga familiale, plus précisément, de montrer comment cette saga suscite l’intérêt du lecteur et capte son attention. Cette étude porte sur deux axes essentiels : la mise en intrigue et lespersonnages dans Les Soeurs Deblois. À travers l’analyse des conflits importants entre les personnages principaux, l’étude sur la mise en place de la tension narrative et l’explication sur le jeu des coïncidences dans Les Soeurs Deblois, nous avons clarifié la stratégie de la mise en intrigue de l’auteure et nous avons mis en lumière l’importance de la dynamique de l’intrigue dans la production de l’intérêt du lecteur. Le personnage est l’un des éléments clés du succès de cette saga familiale. L’étude du système des personnages, les réflexions sur la description et l’analyse des personnages féminins nous permettent de dégager que les personnages réalistes et attachants créés par Louise Tremblay d’Essiambre contribuent à l’interaction entre le texte et le lecteur et tendent à capter l’attention du lecteur. / Louise Tremblay d’Essiambre’s The Deblois Sisters that had an unexpected success is the subject of this thesis. The purpose of this study is to explain the success of this family saga, specifically, to show how this saga arouses the reader’s interest and captures his attention. This study focuses on two key areas : the emplotment and the characters in The DebloisSisters. Through the analysis of major conflicts between the main characters, the study on the establishment of the narrative tension and the explanation on the game of coincidences in The Deblois Sisters, we have clarified the strategy of setting plot of the author and we have highlighted the importance of the dynamics of the plot in the production of the reader’s interest. The character is one of the key elements in the success of this family saga. The study of the system of the characters, les reflections on the description and the analysis of female characters allow us to reach a conclusion : therealistic and attractive characters created by Louise Tremblay d’Essiambre contribute to the interaction between the text and the reader and tend to capture the reader’s attention.

This thesis is based on the belief that representations of women in contemporary Ugandan art serve cultural and political purposes. The premise is that the autonomous woman (seen as the new woman in this study), emerging in Uganda in the mid-1980s, agitated for the social, economic and political emancipation of women in Uganda. It has been demonstrated that the patriarchy attempted to subordinate, confine and regulate this new woman. The press, drama, music and film became powerful tools to force her into silence. This study posits that contemporary Ugandan art was part of this cultural discourse. Adopting a feminist art historical stance, it examines and assesses the gendered content of Uganda’s contemporary art masked as aesthetics. On the one hand, the study exposes the view that some men artists in Uganda use their works to construct men’s power and superiority as the necessary ingredients of gender difference. I demonstrate that some artists have engaged themes through which they have constructed women as being materialistic, gold-diggers, erotic and domesticated. I argue that this has been a strategy to tame Uganda’s new woman. On the other hand, the thesis attempts to show that some women artists have used visual discourse to challenge their marginalisation and to reclaim their ‘agency’ while revising some negative stereotypes about the new woman. This study makes an interdisciplinary contribution to Uganda’s art history, cultural studies and gender studies. / Art History, Visual Arts & Musicology / D. Litt. et Phil. (Art History)

This thesis is based on the belief that representations of women in contemporary Ugandan art serve cultural and political purposes. The premise is that the autonomous woman (seen as the new woman in this study), emerging in Uganda in the mid-1980s, agitated for the social, economic and political emancipation of women in Uganda. It has been demonstrated that the patriarchy attempted to subordinate, confine and regulate this new woman. The press, drama, music and film became powerful tools to force her into silence. This study posits that contemporary Ugandan art was part of this cultural discourse. Adopting a feminist art historical stance, it examines and assesses the gendered content of Uganda’s contemporary art masked as aesthetics. On the one hand, the study exposes the view that some men artists in Uganda use their works to construct men’s power and superiority as the necessary ingredients of gender difference. I demonstrate that some artists have engaged themes through which they have constructed women as being materialistic, gold-diggers, erotic and domesticated. I argue that this has been a strategy to tame Uganda’s new woman. On the other hand, the thesis attempts to show that some women artists have used visual discourse to challenge their marginalisation and to reclaim their ‘agency’ while revising some negative stereotypes about the new woman. This study makes an interdisciplinary contribution to Uganda’s art history, cultural studies and gender studies. / Art History, Visual Arts and Musicology / D. Litt. et Phil. (Art History)