Women writing in contemporary France

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Mother–daughter relations in Constant’s fiction 73 arms round a tearful Babette in order to comfort her, Aurore looks after the alcoholic Lola, and, in turn, Lola helps Aurore to recognise the legitimacy of her own pain. Furthermore, the confidences the women share lead each of them on into self-reflection and to a degree of greater self-knowledge. Thus, there is a real sense in this novel of what women can do for each other – as well as against one another. Klein’s work is relevant to this aspect of the novel too: primary conflicts of love and hate are present throughout life in our relations with other people. The way we work through them in the infantile state influences all the relationships we have later in life. Although it is generally accepted that ambivalence is a common character of mother–daughter relations, Klein would undoubtedly argue that, to some extent, it is also to be found in all our relationships. 8 Constant’s Confidence pour confidence points to different ways in which the identities of the four women are tied up with one another, and for Aurore this works in a positive way. During the course of the novel, Aurore herself never finds out about Gloria’s outrageous plagiarism of her book. 9 On the contrary, Aurore’s work is the centre of attention at the feminist conference, and, moreover, her self-identity is further strengthened in a more personal way. Aurore’s sense of self has always been linked with Lola, whom she physically resembles. In her youth, Aurore was constantly mistaken for the slightly older actress, but here, in Gloria’s house, Lola herself mistakes a photograph of Aurore for her own image. Thus, the dynamics of the relationship between the two women are changed, Lola’s sense of self disintegrating in favour of Aurore’s increasingly stronger identity. For Babette, Gloria’s maternal demeanour is negative, but, in contrast, Aurore is happy for Gloria to care for her: ‘elle continuait à frotter les pieds d’Aurore pour la réconforter, si incroyablement forte, si immensément forte. Aurore se laissait faire dans un abandon d’enfant en nourrice’ (p. 59) (she continued to rub Aurore’s feet to comfort her, so incredibly strong, so immensely strong. Aurore let herself go, abandoning herself like a child to a nurse). These women-to-women relations are certainly pertinent to the apotheosis at the close of the novel, although in themselves they are only one crystallising element in the process which ends in Aurore remembering her mother’s face, and other factors play their part. The death of the pet ‘rat’ in Gloria’s kitchen is more than a real-life replay of an episode from one of Aurore’s books, however much of a contributory factor that reworking in itself may be. Rather, it quite literally enables Aurore to re-experience childhood trauma: ‘Et elle se rappelait, mais lointaine, étouffée, presque
74 Rewriting the past insensible comme une cicatrice, sa douleur d’enfant devant l’animal qu’on lui ordonnait de tuer’ (pp. 177–8) (And she remembered, although it was distant, smothered, almost numb like a scar, the child’s suffering when faced with the animal she was ordered to kill). To remember the pain of loss is an important stage in the mourning process, particularly for Aurore, who has been consciously seeking out connections with the sensations of her childhood: the sounds of wild animals, her mother’s smell, the softness and warmth of her pet chimpanzee. On the very last page of Constant’s novel, the sense of return builds to a dizzying intensity as Aurore has an experience of déjà vu. Outside the church opposite Gloria’s house, a little girl in a yellow dress is singing: ‘Chrétienne est ressuscitée, Chrétienne est ressuscitée.’ (p. 234) (Chrétienne is risen, Chrétienne is risen). Readers who are familiar with Constant’s work are themselves returned here to her preceding novel, La Fille du Gobernator, where: ‘Chrétienne fut pour la messe du dimanche dans la cathédrale jaune, jaune comme une baudruche en plein ciel; jaune, comme une fleur de tournesol; jaune comme le soleil’ (pp. 73–4) (‘Chrétienne was yellow for the mass in the yellow cathedral that Sunday. She was yellow as a balloon in midair, yellow as a sunflower, yellow as the sun’ (p. 54)). This striking reflection between Confidence pour confidence and La Fille du Gobernator is all the more significant in the light of not only the epigraph to Confidence pour confidence, ‘Il y a en moi une jeune fille qui refuse de mourir’ (There is in me a young girl who refuses to die) but also the passage which recounts Aurore’s rescue after the bushfire that killed her parents: Les soldats, se souvint Aurore, avaient réussi à lui enlever Délice qui sentait déjà mauvais. Ils avaient desserré un à un tous ses doigts, ils avaient écarté son coude, soulevé son bras et retenu sa main qui voulait tout reprendre. Ils lui avaient enlevé les lambeaux d’une robe jaune qui restaient collés à sa peau. (p. 51; my emphasis) (The soldiers, Aurore remembered, had succeeded in removing Délice who was already beginning to smell. They had prised open her fingers one by one, moved her elbow, lifted her arm and restrained the hand which was trying to grab hold of everything again. They had peeled away the shreds of a yellow dress that remained stuck to her skin.) At the end of Confidence pour confidence, then, not only does Aurore remember her mother’s face, but, through the little girl in the yellow dress outside Gloria’s house, she also reconnects with a childhood self, a process
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WOMEN’S WRITING IN CONTEMPORARY F
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Copyright © Manchester University
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vi Contents 10 Saying the unsayable
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viii Contributors SHIRLEY JORDAN is
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would like to t
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2 Introduction introduce to English
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4 Introduction became more and more
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6 Introduction French ‘difference
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8 Introduction essential issues to
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10 Introduction Indeed, much contem
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12 Introduction phototextual projec
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14 Introduction about the body or e
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16 Introduction European Union) has
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18 Introduction Béatrice de Jurque
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20 Introduction and the group, the
Page 33 and 34: 22 Introduction Feminist Perspectiv
Page 35 and 36: 24 Introduction Barthes, Image, Mus
Page 37 and 38: 26 Introduction 33 This is a wider
Page 40 and 41: 1 VICTORIA BEST Louise L. Lambrichs
Page 42 and 43: Lambrichs: trauma, dream and narrat
Page 54 and 55: Memory and identity in Redonnet’s
Page 64 and 65: 3 KATHRYN ROBSON The female vampire
Page 66 and 67: Chawaf ’s melancholic autofiction
Page 76 and 77: 4 GILL RYE Lost and found: mother-d
Page 78 and 79: Mother-daughter relations in Consta
Page 88 and 89: 5 ELIZABETH FALLAIZE Puzzling out t
Page 90 and 91: Sibylle Lacan’s Un père 79 for o
Page 92 and 93: Sibylle Lacan’s Un père 81 attac
Page 94 and 95: Sibylle Lacan’s Un père 83 Howev
Page 96 and 97: Sibylle Lacan’s Un père 85 fathe
Page 98 and 99: Sibylle Lacan’s Un père 87 other
Page 100 and 101: Sibylle Lacan’s Un père 89 propr
Page 102: II Writing the dynamics of identity
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Page 111 and 112: 100 Writing the dynamics of identit
Page 117 and 118: 7 SARAH ALYN STACEY ‘On ne s’en
Page 129 and 130: 8 GILL RYE Textual mirrors and unce
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124 Writing the dynamics of identit
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9 SIOBHAN MCILVANNEY The articulati
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10 SHIRLEY JORDAN Saying the unsaya
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III Transgressions and transformati
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158 Transgressions and transformati
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13 MARGARET-ANNE HUTTON ‘Il n’y
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GILL RYE AND MICHAEL WORTON Conclus
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224 Conclusion bi-cultural selves o
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INDIVIDUAL AUTHOR BIBLIOGRAPHY Chri
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228 Individual author bibliography
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GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY Abraham, Nicol
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252 General bibliography Cottenet-H
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254 General bibliography Irigaray,
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256 General bibliography Roudinesco
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INDEX Literary works can be found u
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260 Index fiction(s) (cont.) detect
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262 Index Sebbar, Leïla (cont.) Pa
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Women writing in contemporary France

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