Feminism and Family Dysfunction in Sand's Valentine

This article on George Sand's second novel, Valentine (1832), speaks to previous readings of Sand's earlier fictions considered to be disappointing works of nineteenth-century feminism. This article takes another look at Sand's feminism and finds no abandonment of feminist principles, no forsaking of a feminist sensibility. I read Valentine as a fiction of female development. And, like so many nineteenth-century feminocentric fictions, Sand's novel moves its heroine towards the romance plot, the most characteristic organization of nineteenth-century narrative. Yet, although the novel remains faithful to dominant literary tradition, it attempts as well to envision alternate ways to write the heroine's story. Valentine is exemplary in that it does not privilege oedipal ties over preoedipal ones. The story of the heroine's relationship to her sister is not traded off or displaced by the story of the lovers. By grounding her heroine in a preoedipally organized narrative, Sand opens up the possibility of telling a different developmental story – one that is perhaps more complete – at the least more faithful to the specificity of female development. (DLT)