The Feminine Conspiracy in Balzac's La Cousine Bette

The telescoped ending of Balzac's La Cousine Bette, evident in the convenient killing off of the protagonist and her co-conspirator Valérie Marneffe, motivates this textual analysis of the sexual politics of the novel. Sexual deviancy (i.e. the implicit lesbian relationship between Bette and Valérie) is pinpointed as the unifying thematic device. The erosion of traditional patriarchal social structures, Family and Church, yields momentarily to the installation, within a burgeoning bourgeoisie, of an outlaw feminine order. The abrupt, narratively suppressed death of Bette and the excessively melodramatic expunging of Valérie brings about the happy re-valorization of the Patriarchy. (JRMcG)