This thesis examines the relationships between mothers and daughters against the background of education in early nineteenth-century France. This era was the first time that a large population of French girls was separated from their mothers. Because of their attendance at school, girls created an identity separate from that of the one that their mothers had helped them to create. By using George Sands autobiography Histoire de ma vie and Marceline Desbordes-Valmores poem Ondine à lecole, the process of distinguishing the daughter from the mother has been analyzed from both the mothers perspective and the daughters perspective.
For Sand, who writes from the daughters perspective, her maternal figures (mother and grandmother) push her away from them so that she could get an education. As a result of being pushed away, she is forced to create her own identity. For Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, the opposite occurs. Writing from the mothers perspective, she becomes very protective of her daughter and seems threatened by Ondines success at school through which she creates a distinct identity away from Desbordes-Valmore.
By studying these two works together, one can learn about the mother-daughter dynamics at work and the emotional hardships suffered by both mothers and daughters, as girls began school during this era. Both mother and daughter experienced a feeling of loss, and relationships were permanently changed as daughters created unique identities for themselves.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-04042006-134727 |
| Date | 05 April 2006 |
| Creators | Thomas, Christina Grace |
| Contributors | Katharine Ann Jensen, Frank Anselmo, Caroline Nash |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-04042006-134727/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached herein a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below and in appropriate University policies, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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