Abstract EN:

This work concentrates on a diachronic presentation, through autobiographies and novels written by women of letters, of the evolution of the way in which the relationships between mother and daughter are depicted and of their essential importance in the works. This evolution follows the accession of women to a level of social recognition which has mainly been attained during the 20th century; after having been a novelistic model for Sand and Colette, the mother figure becomes a social emblem under the pen of Leduc and above all of Beauvoir who theorizes her place and exploitation which are amplified in her novels and autobiographical narratives. The mother then becomes an allegorical figure embodying death according to Duras and Yourcenar, before providing Cardinal and Sarraute with the opportunity of a liberation through speech. The following women writers, in an opposite process, turn the mother at the end of her life into a role model, in whom they can recognize themselves to the extent that they submit themselves entirely to her will, in Châtelet’s works. After having freed themselves from the mother figure and having written against her, women writers now write for her; the emergence of a feminine literature followed up a liberation from the mother, but the process has been reversed