| dc.description | Essentially a comparative and contrastive analysis, this thesis examines the recent work of five French women authors who have published since 1985: Monique Wittig, Liliane Atlan, Liliane Giraudon, Marguerite Duras and Marie Redonnet. Either directly or indirectly, all of the prose works which form the body of the analysis are based on, grow out of, develop from, or are rewritings of a specific earlier work or works drawn from the literary canon. This intertextual trend in women's writing can be considered a means for women writers of entering language or a means of coming to terms with a literary "tradition" in which they have been marginalized or from which they have been blatantly excluded. In addition to the intertextual element, each of the authors is concerned with the nature of language and how the written word, in all its fragility which continually threatens discourse, can be made nevertheless to express a specific ontological enterprise. This concern in women's writing reflects the current crisis in representation which has profoundly destabilized and seriously questioned the nature of fundamental humanist concepts. Giving expression to a particular female specificity in the light of the disintegration of the written word remains an enterprise with diversified and stimulating solutions as this thesis attempts to show. | en_US |
