In the Eyes of the Beholder: French Perceptions of Women and the Occupation, 1940-Present

Program year: 1994/1995Digitized from print original stored in HDRFilm and literature provide a vehicle for the exploration of the issues facing women during the Occupation. Many of the ambiguities of the period are personified through female characters, characters that simultaneously provide a uniquely feminine perspective. The symbolic equivocation of France throughout history with women is highly significant, complex, and not without ambiguous qualities. This ambiguity is especially consequential in the study of women in Occupied France during World War II. In the continuing re-examination of the Vichy years, one begins to see the growing emphasis on women and the roles they played. In studying these women, the true nature of France itself is being examined. As women have been forgotten and ignored, so have been the realities of a nation collaborating with a foreign aggressor. The portrayal of the lives of women through literature and film exemplify the ambiguities of collaboration and resistance, and underscore the patriarchal and hypocritical nature of the Vichy regime. This thesis will explore the following: first, the roles of women under Vichy and the impact of war on their daily lives by examining works of literature and cinematic representations, namely The War by Marguerite Duras and Claude Chabrol's story of Women; second, the manner in which these pieces figure into Henry Rousso's "Vichy Syndrome," specifically as cultural carriers of the syndrome and their effect on the memory of the Occupation; and third, the iconographic representation of the ambiguities of collaboration, the National Revolution, and the victimization of women by their own country