Abstract
A year after the French success scandal that Rachilde had with her decadent novel Monsieur Vénus, a novel by the Swedish writer Victoria Benedictsson, Money [Pengar], is published in Sweden in 1885. The two novels focus on young women having to find their identities within society's new possibilities, as well as the new gender roles; developed by the new society. In their relations with both conventional and non-conventional male characters, the two female characters transgress society's former established and given norms. In this article, the aim is to present how two female protagonists, the French Raoule and the Swedish Selma, are given different background conditions and qualities that finally can contribute to picture and explain their outstanding independence. Moreover, the new gender roles and their impact on the two female characters are discussed within themes and terms such as the "new woman", androgynity, sexuality and other explicite ingredients and symbols often discussed in a decadent context. Through the comparisons, this article shows how the two female portraits express the decadent transgressivity, in several aspects similarly, with individual voices, despite their two separate literary milieux.
Highlights
Quant à la Suédoise Benedictsson, la précision qu’elle donne sur la masculinité des traits de Selma montre son intérêt pour les mêmes questions; elle précise en outre que Kristerson, le mari d’une Selma qui déjà ne semblait guère attirée par les hommes, loin de réussir à lui plaire, l’a plutôt rempli de dégoût, et cela dès leur première nuit ensemble: C’était donc avec cet homme qu’elle s’était mariée hier? On dirait qu’elle ne l’avait jamais vu
Summary A year after the French success scandal that Rachilde had with her decadent novel Monsieur Vénus, a novel by the Swedish writer Victoria Benedictsson, Money [Pengar], is published in Sweden in 1885
The two novels focus on young women having to find their identities within society’s new possibilities, as well as the new gender roles; developed by the new society
Summary
Un autre aspect du fait d’être orpheline de mère concerne, comme l’a noté Diana Holmes, la difficulté qui surgit pour la jeune femme de sa rencontre avec un corps masculin plus dur quand le corps plus doux de la mère qui lui a manqué.[15] Une enfance sans mère peut donc expliquer le fait que les deux héroïnes se trouvent attirées par des hommes moins masculins, voire efféminés, et en même temps qu’elles aient elles-mêmes pu évoluer en femmes fortes.
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