Portraits féminins chez Maïssa Bey

This work deals with female portraits in the works of Maïssa Bey, a French-speaking Algerian writer who was born in Algeria in 1950 and still continues her literary life. Bey is known for writing about women. Her works feature women of all ages, social classes and backgrounds. What they have in common, however, is the fact that readers can recognize them in their real lives. They are part of real life. This memoir is divided into three main parts. The first deals with the historical, linguistic and literary context of Algeria. The second part analyzes the theoretical approach of feminism and feminist writing. Finally, the feminine portraits in Maïssa Bey's works are explained, with examples and quotations from writers, researchers and intellectuals. The first and second parts of the memoir are useful for understanding the context in which Maïssa Bey was formed. And the third part will be devoted to the characters and the situations in which these characters find themselves. The aim of this work is therefore to understand Maïssa Bey's literary universe and to understand the reasons that led her to adopt a feminine style of writing, with the aim of writing to make women talk about women. As already mentioned, our first part consists of an overview of Algeria's historical, linguistic and literary context. Historically, the country has always been under threat of foreign occupation, but the biggest change came with French colonization. France considered Algeria its territory and established its own order. With this new order, French culture took precedence over Algerian culture. A policy of acculturation and assimilation was applied to the Algerians. This policy was put into practice through the language and teaching of French. This creates a linguistic duality in Algeria. There is also a reaction in Algerian society, which refuses to adopt the rules of French administration. This duality also exists in literature. On the one hand, there is Arabic speaking Algerian literature, and on the other, there is French-speaking Algerian literature, of which Maïssa Bey is a part. In this chapter, we look at Algerian literature in French, and the most important writers of this literature. In the next chapter, we take a closer look at women writers in French-speaking Algerian literature. This time, we take a more in-depth look, analyzing them in three different categories: the first female writers, the second generation and writers from 1980 onwards. Understanding historical events will be useful for this work, as it will enable us to better situate ourselves in Maïssa Bey's works, which use Algerian history as a context. Knowing more about the linguistic situation in Algeria will also help us understand Maïssa Bey's situation and her concept of identity. We'll find a parallelism between the country and the writer. Finally, the study of French speaking Algerian literature, and especially that of its women writers, will help us understand Maïssa Bey's literary heritage, as well as that of her contemporaries and their shared aspirations. The second part of our work is devoted to the theoretical approach. The first chapter of this part is divided into two sub-chapters. The first sub-chapter deals with feminism. For ease of analysis, we divide this ideological movement into three waves and try to identify the characteristics of each wave and the circumstances in which they arose. This study will help us better understand women's writing, which we'll look at in the second sub-chapter. Women's writing is writing that privileges the female subject. It encourages women to talk about themselves, to dare to write rather than be written about by men. In other words, to be the subject instead of the object. The second chapter of this section deals with feminism in Algeria and Algerian women's writing. This sub-chapter is like a transition to Maïssa Bey's universe. In this chapter, we'll see that Algerian feminism doesn't run parallel to Western feminism, since in an Eastern world, the order is not the same. Society and its dynamics are different from those of the West. The final chapter of this section focuses on Maïssa Bey and her literary universe. The first sub-chapter deals with her commitment as a writer. Following a brief biography, her works will be cited, and then we'll see what her commitment consists of. The second sub-chapter of this chapter deals with the themes that are central to Maïssa Bey's work: history, the female condition and female identity. Although this part of the dissertation is a sub-chapter, it sums up all the parts that precede it, since to understand her historical theme, you need to know Algerian history, including the country's linguistic problems, as well as Algerian literature, since she often refers to these elements. The theme of the female condition reflects the influence of feminism and women's writing, as does that of female identity, since it refers to self-reflection, which is also one of the aims of women's writing. The third section analyzes Maïssa Bey's concept of woman. First, there's a chapter on the female portraits created by the writer. The first sub-chapter is entitled "Women accepting their social status and women outside the norm". We'll give examples from Maïssa Bey's works. First, examples of traditional women who accept the established male order will be cited. Then there are the marginal women who do not submit to tradition, to what is expected of them as women. They are on a quest for freedom, aimed at destroying the feminine stereotype. The second sub-chapter focuses on the female body as an object of violence. First of all, we'll note the existence of violence in general as a subject in Maïssa Bey's work. This description of violence is due to Algeria's violent past, since the scenes describing this violence concern the war of independence. Secondly, the violence is directed at the female body. We see violence of all kinds, from husbands to wives and fathers to children, as well as rape. The third sub-chapter is still about the female body, but this time as an object of seduction. The rules of Algerian society are based on male perceptions. Since men see women as objects to be seduced, they have to be concealed and their interaction with the public sphere limited. What's more, the female body as an object of seduction shows the weakness of men who put their masculine needs first, since they allow themselves to be influenced by the woman's body. For women, the female body is a source of shame and guilt. Menstruation, bodily pleasure, abortion and homosexuality are all subjects related to the female body. However, talking about these subjects in the public arena is not possible for fear of shame and guilt, since the value judgments of Algerian society are those of men. Anything to do with women has to remain hidden, in private. In the final sub-chapter, women's solidarity is shown as a solution to these prohibitions, which become taboos in public life. Women create a place for themselves and stand in solidarity with the outside world, which is the domain of men. The second and final chapter deals with the relationship between man and woman. The first sub-chapter is entitled "Mother vs. father", and includes examples of both mothers and fathers. As with traditional and marginal women, examples are given of two kinds of mother: those who are traditional and those who dare to contradict tradition. The same applies to fathers. Yet it's important to note that the male figure is virtually non-existent in Maïssa Bey's work. More often than not, they are either absent or unnamed and in the background. This choice is deliberate, so that readers can concentrate on the female characters. The second sub-chapter deals with the superiority of men over women. Once again, this is the result of men's perception that they are better than women. The last two sub-chapters deal respectively with incommunicability between man and woman and sexual relations between husband and wife. In these sub-chapters too, through examples taken from Bey's works, we see the miscommunication between two genders, once again the result of phallocentric society. To conclude this section, we can say that Maïssa Bey rejects the silence of oppressed women by putting them at the heart of her works, by talking about their conditions, their states of mind. Finally, it can be said that Maïssa Bey strives to present readers with realistic portraits of women in order to realize her commitment to improving the status of women. Bearing the traces of her country's history, she wants to encourage women to free themselves, to ask questions and to find ways of eliminating male oppression.