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Forum for Modern Language Studies Advance Access published online on December 17, 2007
Forum for Modern Language Studies, doi:10.1093/fmls/cqm118
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© The Author (2007). Published by Oxford University Press for the Court of the University of St Andrews. All rights reserved

Ni ennemie, ni rivale: Female friendship in works by Alice Rivaz, Anne-Lise Grobéty and Noëlle Revaz

Joy Charnley

Department of Modern Languages
University of Strathclyde 26 Richmond Street
Glasgow G1 1XH
United Kingdom

j.charnley{at}strath.ac.uk

  Abstract

This article studies the theme of female friendship in work by three women writers from French-speaking Switzerland: La Paix des ruches by Alice Rivaz (1947), Pour mourir en février by Anne-Lise Grobéty (1969) and Rapport aux bêtes (2002) by Noëlle Revaz. The writers chosen for this study represent three generations, having been born in 1901, 1949 and 1968 respectively. The article compares and contrasts their different representations of friendships between women. Rivaz, writing before Le Deuxième sexe and the modern women's movement, has a very idealistic view of relations between women, which she contrasts strongly with male–female interaction; Grobéty, writing in the wake of 1968 and during the early days of modern feminism, is perhaps more realistic but again sees men as potential threats to relationships between women; finally, Revaz is completely different since her female character is isolated from other women, dominated by the male narrator and sidelined. This article thus seeks to show how, over a period of sixty years, the theme of female friendship has been dealt with in different ways by women writers, and establishes links with changing attitudes to the women's movement.

Key Words: Switzerland • women's writing • feminism • friendship • littérature romande • novel • Rivaz, Alice • Grobéty, Anne-Lise • Revaz, Noëlle


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