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The descendants of Eve: rewriting the Fall in nineteenth-century French literature Jayne Duff (24165999) PUREID: 426354448 Eve Genesis nineteenth-century France nineteenth-century French Literature rebellious women deviance Honoré de Balzac George Sand Barbey d'Aurevilly Gustave Flaubert Émile Zola Villiers de l'Isle Adam female identity The Fall This thesis underlines the significance of the French nineteenth-century rewritings of Eve for understanding the contemporary enduring relevance of this rebellious female figure and the lived experience of gender in the twenty-first century. From Balzac’s adulterous housewife, who must be ‘lifted up’ and redeemed, to Villiers de l’Isle Adam’s (dis-)obedient Eve robot, there presentation of Eve takes a plurality of forms in nineteenth-century French literature. This topical and recurring trope lends itself to various literary, social, political and religious strategies across space and time; although writers and philosophical thinkers have tried to bind Eve to one particular ideological representation of woman as deviant, an analysis of the Eve trope demonstrates that there is a resistance to the suppression of female identity.<br> 2026-10-01T16:59:17Z Text Thesis 10.17034/32633940.v1 https://figshare.com/articles/thesis/The_descendants_of_Eve_rewriting_the_Fall_in_nineteenth-century_French_literature/32633940 All Rights Reserved