Power and Discourse in Nineteenth-Century Sexuality as Presented in L'Education sentimentale

Gustave Flaubert's L'Education sentimentale is here read as a normative text in relation to sexual attitudes of nineteenth-century France. The female characters, and even Frédéric, display the hysteria that was considered endemic to female sexuality, as Michel Foucault's studies show. The women's placement in the novel-always described, never expressing their own thoughts-is seen through analyses by Naomi Schor and Marcelle Thiebaux to be also a reflection of woman's place in society. This inability to communicate is an additional indication of woman's secondary status, as well as carrying implications for Frédéric's masculinity, as Foucault's comments on discourse suggest. (LMB)