Deux frères en quête de peuple: les Goncourt

The Goncourts jumped suddenly into the roman populaire stating the necessity to grant le peuple access to the novel. But the proletariat does not really occupy a significant place in Sœur Philomène, Germinie Lacerteux, and La Fille Elisa as it is represented by marginal women. Nevertheless these women are engaged in a conflict of social nature that becomes more and more violent. Through the ambiguous discourse of the Goncourts that condemns systems of repression but never the social order that enforces them, it becomes evident that an historical confrontation has been transposed into an individual problematic and the status-quo reaffirmed. (In French) (DT)