La femme-artiste dans Elle et Lui, Lucrezia Floriani de George Sand et La Jongleuse de Rachilde

Advisors: Maryline Lukacher.Committee members: Nicole Clifton; Christopher Nissen.This thesis examines the characters of women artists in three novels, Elle et Lui, and Lucrezia Floriani by George Sand, and La Jongleuse by Rachilde. Specifically, it focuses on the outcomes of women artists' choices, considering other elements, such as the comparison between a female and a male artist, sexual ambiguities and their implications, the contrast between friendship and passionate love, and also maternal behavior and motherhood. Moreover, the thesis also takes into consideration the dialectics of power: who is dominated and who dominates? Finally, autobiographical information is given whenever necessary or relevant: both authors are mothers whose relationships with their own mothers were conflicted.;I will argue that for our three heroines, it is truly their secret (their past) that haunts them perpetually, insomuch as it determines their choice to sacrifice a part of their multiple identities. Therese chooses motherhood upon the return of her son Manoel, whom she thought dead, Lucrezia lets herself die by her passionate love for prince Karol and her children become orphans. Eliante opts for art because she is still traumatized by her dead husband.M.A. (Master of Arts