L'Expression du sentiment maternel chez George Sand et dans son oeuvre

• Auteur / Autrice : Bernadette Segoin
• Direction : Jacques Viard
• Type : Thèse de doctorat
• Discipline(s) : Littérature française
• Date : Soutenance en 1986
• Etablissement(s) : Aix-Marseille 1

Résumé

Des la premiere moitie du dix-neuvieme siecle, le sentiment de la maternite nous semble occuper une place preponderante dans l'oeuvre de george sand. Privee de pere a quatre ans, et souffrant ainsi d'une premiere carence affective, elle sub it en outre la mesentente entre sa grand-mere et sa mere, ce qui la frustra d'un amour capable d'equilibrer son enfance perturbee. Ce passe nous permet de mieux evaluer son comportement de femme et de romanciere, et de comprendre pourquoi t oute attitude maternelle, chez elle, correspond a un moyen d'expression - qui compense ses desillusions -, ou une facon de s'assurer un certain pouvoir sur les etres dont elle veut se sentir responsable. Reussissant a modeler son fils mauri ce selon son ideal, elle ressent l'echec de la maternite avec sa fille solange. De plus, elle considere non seulement ses amants et ses correspondants, mais aussi le peuple, comme des enfants. Car, de par son engagement politique qui lui a fait decouvrir la philosophie de pierre leroux, elle se sent investie du role d'ecrivain missionnaire. Persuadee en effet que c'est par sa fonction de mere que la femme favorisera le progres social , elle guide et instruit ses lectrices en leur proposant un traite de maternite, dont les differents chapitres sont des romans qui exaltent l'influence privilegiee de la mere ou denoncent les obstacles a l'expression de ce devoir feminin.

The outstanding importance of the call for mother-love in george sand's work can be traced back to the first part of the nineteenth century. She was fatherless when four and in addition to that loss of affection had to bear the bad relation ship between her mother and grandmother and so was denied the love which might have made up for her troubled childhood. Her past accounts for her attitude as a woman, as a novelist too and it explains why every call for mother-love she has is a mean of expression and a compensation for her disillusionment - or again a mean of ruling those she wants to feel r esponsible for. She succeeded in bringing up her son maurice according to her ideal but she failed as a mother as regard s solange, her daughter. What's more she looks upon her lovers and pen-friends as children and as a consequence of her p olitical engagement - she was a disciple of pierre leroux's philosophy - she has the same feeling for the lower-classes for she strongly believes she is a writer with a call. Undeed, she feels convinced that women will contribute to social progress as mothers and in order to orientate and teach her female-readers, she proposes to them a treaty on mother-love with novels for chapters, putting forward the unparalleled influence of mothers or again blaming what impedes the expre ssion of this feminine duty.