The Woman Beneath: The femme de marbre in Zola's La Faute de l'abbé Mouret

In Zola's La Faute de l'abbé Mouret, female characters traditionally have been labeled as either chaste or erotic figures. In fact, the marble statue buried under the Paradou collapses this apparent dichotomy by incorporating physical traits from these two types of women, thereby providing a new means of interpreting this novel's female characters based on criteria that lie beyond the realm of the body. In addition, the femme de marbre, which exhibits both masculine and feminine qualities, calls into question the notion of gender and suggests that the key to feminine gender may lie beyond the sphere of what is visible. (HMH)