Violences de plumeaux. La bonne criminelle

authors

• Kovacshazy Cécile

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abstract

From the early 19th century to the present day, stories featuring a maid as protagonist are legion. These “ancillary narratives” feature much the same narrative thread: the declension of violence in all its forms - harassment, rape, inhumane daily living conditions (lack of food, heating, medical care), physical and psychological abuse, suicide, murder. The whole spectrum of violence is thus narrated in this particular corpus - one of the particularities being that domestic and professional violence are intertwined. From the second half of the 19th century onwards, a topical figure seems to have taken root in the European imagination: the criminal servant. This topos stems from the fantasy of domesticity as potentially dangerous, even to the point of murder. For, in the fantasies of the bourgeoisie, the more gentle and docile the maid, the more she could conceal a bloodthirsty woman behind her soubrette apron. Gradually, however, the story opens up to other narrative and narratological structures, where the maid can be criminal for other reasons and in other ways. Around this figure, the real and the imaginary maintain a stormy relationship.

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