Crimes of Reason,Crimes of Passion: Suicide and the Adulterous Woman in Nineteenth-Century France

The anxieties that determined the nineteenth-century French obsession with female behavior found symbolic expression in the adulterous and suicidal woman. We see this clearly in novels where both adultery and suicide feature prominently, but the anxiety these themes provoked was not limited to works of fiction. A striking number of moral essays and medical studies were devoted to the subject of feminine nature during this period, and it is here especially that the dangerous tendencies of independent and sexually active women were revealed. By analyzing the literary representation of the suicidal and adulterous woman in the works of male and female writers alongside the theories of physicians, critics, and moral reformers, the author demonstrates how this image came to symbolize much more than the violation of ethical standards. In literature as in life, unconventional women needed to be severely punished lest their defiant attitudes inspire further acts of rebellion.