Private Life and Collective Experience in Quebec: The Autobiographical Project of France Théoret

In her study of women's autobiographical writing, Carolyn Heilbrun contends that women's authorship has been most hindered by the lack of narrative structures adequate to the telling of women's experience. She further suggests that female narrative will be found as women talk together...

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Main Author: Mary Jean Green
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: New Prairie Press 1993-01-01
Series:Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature
Online Access:http://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol17/iss1/9
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author Mary Jean Green
author_facet Mary Jean Green
author_sort Mary Jean Green
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description In her study of women's autobiographical writing, Carolyn Heilbrun contends that women's authorship has been most hindered by the lack of narrative structures adequate to the telling of women's experience. She further suggests that female narrative will be found as women talk together, exchange stories, and move toward a collective understanding of self. In recent years, the interplay of women's voices has assumed new importance in women's writing, and specifically in women's life/writing in French. Perhaps beginning with Simone de Beauvoir's feminist classic, The Second Sex , where the words of hundreds of other women are woven into the text to form an understanding of the shape of a woman's life, this new form of women's narrative is apparent in the autobiographical project of the Quebec Francophone writer France Théoret. In her novel Nous parlerons comme on écrit , the interplay of different voices and the interlocking and mirroring of disparate narratives enable Théoret to construct a female autobiographical subject that encompasses the reality of several generations of Quebec women. Théoret's work is thus, like that of the Algerian Francophone writer Assia Djebar, an example of a new narrative form that has emerged from women's collective efforts to construct a new female self, a sort of feminist collective autobiography.
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spelling doaj.art-ab9cb21375464a54a3a94558777f624b2022-12-22T03:16:00ZengNew Prairie PressStudies in 20th & 21st Century Literature2334-44151993-01-0117110.4148/2334-4415.13155630726Private Life and Collective Experience in Quebec: The Autobiographical Project of France ThéoretMary Jean GreenIn her study of women's autobiographical writing, Carolyn Heilbrun contends that women's authorship has been most hindered by the lack of narrative structures adequate to the telling of women's experience. She further suggests that female narrative will be found as women talk together, exchange stories, and move toward a collective understanding of self. In recent years, the interplay of women's voices has assumed new importance in women's writing, and specifically in women's life/writing in French. Perhaps beginning with Simone de Beauvoir's feminist classic, The Second Sex , where the words of hundreds of other women are woven into the text to form an understanding of the shape of a woman's life, this new form of women's narrative is apparent in the autobiographical project of the Quebec Francophone writer France Théoret. In her novel Nous parlerons comme on écrit , the interplay of different voices and the interlocking and mirroring of disparate narratives enable Théoret to construct a female autobiographical subject that encompasses the reality of several generations of Quebec women. Théoret's work is thus, like that of the Algerian Francophone writer Assia Djebar, an example of a new narrative form that has emerged from women's collective efforts to construct a new female self, a sort of feminist collective autobiography.http://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol17/iss1/9
spellingShingle Mary Jean Green
Private Life and Collective Experience in Quebec: The Autobiographical Project of France Théoret
Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature
title Private Life and Collective Experience in Quebec: The Autobiographical Project of France Théoret
title_full Private Life and Collective Experience in Quebec: The Autobiographical Project of France Théoret
title_fullStr Private Life and Collective Experience in Quebec: The Autobiographical Project of France Théoret
title_full_unstemmed Private Life and Collective Experience in Quebec: The Autobiographical Project of France Théoret
title_short Private Life and Collective Experience in Quebec: The Autobiographical Project of France Théoret
title_sort private life and collective experience in quebec the autobiographical project of france theoret
url http://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol17/iss1/9
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