The Economies of Marriage in Madame de Villedieu's Mémoires de la vie de Henriette-Sylvie de Molière (1671-74)

Abstract

Abstract:In the present article, the author argues that despite the apparent unconventionality of the heroine of Madame de Villedieu's Mémoires de la vie de Henriette-Sylvie de Molière and her seeming bad luck, it is instead her own dependence on the trappings of mondaine society, such as wealth and reputation, that advance the narrative and motivate her decisions. Sylvie is loath to withdraw from the exchanges that define this society and are inherent to its functionings. In fact, she communicates in her narrative a constant awareness of how others perceive and judge her, or at least how she believes she is perceived. The two marriages in which she willingly and decisively engages exemplify this social dependence and thus betray her fundamental conventionality as a romantic heroine in spite of the reader's predisposition to viewing her otherwise.