The presentation of the mother of the family in the novels by Rétif de la Bretonne

Abstract

This work analyses, from romans by Rétif de la Bretonne, three types of family’s mothers living in the French society during the 18th century. The country mother is naturally and unconditionally virtuous and submissive to her husband. The mother of extended family helps her husband with joyful tender during the time of happiness, and she cheers him up at the terrible moment in the family. The town includes the two other types of mothers: the one is virtuous, and the other is libertine. The virtuous mother of the nuclear family cares about the customs of her children at the expense of the bad behavior of her society. She does her best to preserve the honor of the family, to protect her child and to help him or her to be socially acceptable without the consent of the father. The libertine mother of the town is not under parental nor marital authority. She shows her child, especially her girl, libertine education, methods of seduction, attraction of libertines through herclothes and walking in libertine area of Paris. This is the way the libertine mother teaches her progeny to her job so that she can continue to assume that business. This paper on the presentation of the mother of the family tends to underline on one hand, the influence of area related to the behavior of the character and on the other hand, to present to scholars different possible categories of mother in novels by a long unknown author. Narratology and sociocriticism will allow understanding scientifically the uniqueness of each of mothers according to their area of living and their marital status. The use of these methods facilitates the presentation of the blind conformity of mothers of countries from decision-makers of virtuous mothers of towns to the concern for maintaining the libertinage of libertine mothers. Key words : mother, family, submissive, virtuous, libertine