| Popis: |
The 1843 death of Leopoldine, daughter of Victor Hugo, was one of the most significant events in the author’s life, and one of the best known in literary history. In this essay, I show that the Les Miserables characters Fantine, Eponine, and Cosette, long understood as avatars of Leopoldine, serve as rewritings of the daughter’s disembodiment through death and as explorations of the troubling issue of the daughter’s sexuality. I examine Hugo’s surprisingly frequent representations of the young women’s voices as distinct from their bodies, to disembodying and spiritualizing effect. These three young women thus become rewritings of Leopoldine that play a role in the author’s long journey toward reconciliation with his discomfort at her marriage and grief at her death, unified with the novel’s social mission. |
