LA REPRÉSENTATION DE LA RELIGIEUSE DANS ANNA POURQUOI DE PAN BOUYOUCA

Abstract

In fictional and non-fictional works, the woman has been represented in her various forms and shapes, her virtues and vices, her greatness and pettiness. She has played divergent roles: major, minor and even peripheral ones in novels. Feminists theories have also contributed undeniably to the emancipation of women. They have indeed reshaped and redirected certain trends of thoughts, as it concerns a tolerable co-existence of the two major sexes in the society. While many critics and scholars applaud this ideology, some others find loopholes to puncture the “overblown theories”, either to bring them to their rightful place or to make them disappear completely. However, there is a group of women who seem to have been forgotten in this race. Relegated to the background, they work in the shadows. These women give their lives for the society. They care for the human person from womb to tomb, from cradle to hospice, from day-care to tertiary institution, from nurturing a dream to its fulfillment. The very nature of their lives leaves them with little or no option when it comes to the spiritual, physical, social and psychological care and development of a person. Yet, little is known and said of them in the society and in the literary world. These are the religious women, the catholic nuns!Using the sociocritic method of Patricia Smart and the classification model of Romain Légaré, this paper aims at the exploration of the representation of the religious woman in the novel of this author, who dared to give them a central role in his work: Anna Pourquoi. The conclusion is that the author actually presented a positive image of the religieuse women in his work