Postures de la marginalité : Albertine Sarrazin (1937-1967), Grisélidis Réal (1929-2005), Nelly Arcan (1973-2009)

Abstract

Conceptualized by Jrme Meizoz, an auctorial posture is a writers literary identity. Its an image produced from the interaction between discourse and verbal and nonverbal behavior. As an author finds himself thrown into the public domain, he has to control this constructed identity. However, some authors fall prey to this image. In this study, the concept of posture is applied to a genre that interweaves fiction and reality: the autofictive works of Albertine Sarrazin, Grislidis Ral and Nelly Arcan, three authors who have engaged in prostitution. In fact, prostitution raises questions of power, inequality and social norms. In her autofictive work, Sarrazin, the first woman to have written about her life as a criminal and prostitute, demonstrates how strong of an impact traditional female gender roles have on society and judicial procedures. It was still believed that the deliquent woman must be dismissed as a pathological exception. In light of Michel Foucaults theories, Sarrazins discourse is a revolt against a power that believes criminality in women to be the manifestation of a disease in need of treatment. In contrast, Real embraces this stigma. To free herself from morality and its binding discourse, she calls prostitution a delinquency. Her discourse thus subverts social and dominant norms on sexuality. However, Arcan shows that those norms are difficult to erase. In her autofictive works, she states that any woman who conforms to the high standards of beauty established by the mass media is a whore. It is undeniable that her discourse questions feminism. In conclusion, this study unmasks the power relations that govern the norms of a society that unveils itself as no less patriarcal.