La Vierge et la Bete: Marian Iconographies and Bestial Effigies in Nineteenth-Century French narratives.(Critical Essay)
2002; University of Nebraska Press; Volume: 31; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1536-0172
Autores Tópico(s)Diverse Cultural and Historical Studies
ResumoAlthough nineteenth-century France is well known to be an age of science, materialism and reason, same period experienced a powerful Marian revival. The renewed popularity of Virgin Mary simultaneously influenced and reflected social expectations of women. Between 1830 and 1876, six apparitions of Virgin Mary were reported in France and all of them eventually won full approbation of Catholic Church. The three most influential apparitions occurred in Paris in 1830, in Salette in 1846 and in Lourdes in 1858. Although representations of women in French literature had often portrayed them in stereotypical two-dimensional extremes, as either pure or defiled, what is specific to nineteenth century is woman cast in image of ange du hameau or angel of house. jeune fille, souvent nommee l'ange du hameau, est depeinte comme la lumiere dans la misere. Elle est presentee--et elle doit etre--comme l'espoir inattendu, une apparition relevant du miracle. A l'image de la Vierge, elle soulage et protege. A l'image de la Vierge, elle incarne la bonte et la purete. (Levy 119) The portrayal of woman as angelic is so exaggerated that at rimes descriptions of apparitions of Virgin Mary are almost entirely inter-changeable with descriptions of female literary protagonists. According to Zola, Virgin had always had a special affection for France: La France avait toujours ete son pays aime, on l'y adorait d'un culte fervent, le culte meme de la femme et de la mere, dans un envolee de tendresse brulante; et c'etait en France surtout qu'elle se plaisait a se montrer aux petites bergeres (86). In this essay, I will demonstrate how following nineteenth-century narratives develop representations of woman as virgin or beast: Honore de Balzac's Le Lys dans la vallee (1836), Edmond and Jules de Goncourt's Soeur Philomene (1861) and Emile Zola's Lourdes (1898). The protagonists in these novels express three distinct approaches to representing virgin: character, sainthood and apparition. This essay will show how theme of virgin progresses during century from Balzac's use of metaphor and metonymy early in century to Zola's eventual morphing of literary virgin with Virgin Mary. The bestial theme is developed predominantly through secondary characters. Bestial imagery in Balzac is directly associated with excessive sexual appetite and moral weakness packaged in an alluring female body. As Marian revival becomes more powerful, a metamorphosis takes place. At end of century, beast is no longer portrayed as incarnation of sexual passion, but as characters who literally look like monsters because of disfiguring illness or malformation. They appeal to Virgin for healing of their monstrous afflictions. In 1830, Virgin Mary appeared to Sister Catherine Laboure at Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul Motherhouse in Paris. She directed nun to have a medal struck that corresponded to vision she experienced. This was an image of Mary as she is now portrayed under title of Immaculate Conception: framed by an oval and clothed in a white gown with a blue mantle and a silvery veil. Her arms are outstretched and brilliant rays of light shine from her hands. She is crushing a serpent beneath her feet, ultimate juxtaposition of Virgin and Beast. Blue and white represent innocence and purity, but as Barbara Corrado Pope argues they were also colors of royalist France (176). Pope maintains that the iconography of this most widely distributed of Marian images ... projected a militant and defiant message that through Mary Church would defeat its enemies, one of which was the overweening human pride in efficacy of science, materialism, and rationality (177). Although Laboure's apparitions received some degree of national attention, it was fourteen-year-old asthmatic shepherdess, Bernadette Soubirous, in Lourdes who experienced most famous nineteenth-century French Marian apparitions in 1858. …
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