Latin American Languages and Societies Commons^™

Réécritures Romanesques Du Mythe De Médée Chez Maryse Condé Et Marie N’Diaye, Jean-Luc Manenti

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

The mythical figure of Medea, made notable by child murder, has had a significant diffusion in contemporary fiction. A comparative analysis of her apparition in some novels by Maryse Condé and by Marie N’Diaye demonstrates the transposition and the updating of the myth according to varied cultural contexts. Situated between transgression and sublimation, the renovated figure of the infanticidal genitrix associates the imaginary of the beneficent mother to the one of the harmful mother. This hybrid status allows her to reveal a different specificity, one that goes beyond manichean classifications.