Deux romans d’apprentissage écologiques au féminin : lecture comparée de La Petite Fadette (1849) et The Mill on the Floss (1860)

Abstract

This article proposes a joint re-reading of George Sand's La Petite Fadette and George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss as ecological coming-of-age novels. On the one hand, the rich and dynamic representation of a natural environment is compared with portraits of women in movement. Secondly, we examine how the two heroines’ learning process results in decisive conflicts between animal instincts and moral imperatives. A number of ideas are then put forward for teaching these two novels at secondary school level, by linking the environmental issue to social issues and a reflection on gender.