Femininity in the Position of the Oppressed in Nino Ricci’s Lives of the Saints A Comparison to Nelly Arcan’s Putain in Canadian and Quebec Literary Portrayals of Contemporary Womanhood

Ewa Drab

Résumé

Nino Ricci, an award-winning English-speaking Italian descendant, and Nelly Arcan, suicidal Quebecker from Montreal, portray contemporary womanhood as seen through the lenses of oppression. In Ricci’s Lives of the Saints the figure of mother becomes a curse of the woman’s son, whose whole existence is conditioned by his mother’s incidental and adulterous pregnancy. The mother shifts from the position of an individual to the position of a symbol by becoming sinful representation of her disobedience in the relation to social rules. She is dominated by masculine gaze and rules established by men. Inversely acts Cynthia, the prostitute in Nelly Arcan’s Putain, who chooses her fate intentionally but who is equally conditioned by the social environment in which she grew up. Being a prostitute is an act of succumbing to masculine tyranny.

Key words: womanhood, oppressor, subjugation, Ricci, Arcan.

Télécharger les fichiers

Règles de citation

Drab, E. Femininity in the Position of the Oppressed in Nino Ricci’s <i>Lives of the Saints</i> A Comparison to Nelly Arcan’s <i>Putain</i> in Canadian and Quebec Literary Portrayals of Contemporary Womanhood. Romanica Silesiana, 8(1). Consulté à l’adresse https://journals.us.edu.pl/index.php/RS/article/view/5883

Vol. 8 No 1 (2013)
Publié:


ISSN: 1898-2433
eISSN: 2353-9887

Éditeur
Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego | University of Silesia Press

Ce site utilise des cookies pour fonctionner correctement. Pour profiter pleinement de la plateforme, veuillez accepter les cookies.