Rival Sisters and Vengeance Motifs in the contes de fées of d'Aulnoy, Lhéritier and Perrault

Abstract

It has often been acknowledged by scholars that Mme d’Aulnoy is like many of her contemporaries—Mlles Lheritier, Bernard, and de La Force, Mmes de Murat, and d’Auneuil—in that most of their fairy tales deal with heroines who dress as men, venture outside the house to redeem their families’ honor, and often question seventeenthcentury assumptions about invariable gender characteristics (Harries 39). But scholars have also pointed out the dubious manner in which the conteuses are serving women’s interests, especially considering the submission of the heroines to a male code, and the taming of female desire according to typical male views of female nature—all points which mark the morals attached to the end of almost every narrative, or else the conventional ending with a marriage.1 Although I