La jeune femme dans le Paris de la Belle Époque

L'expérience urbaine féminine dans "Claudine à Paris" de Colette

Abstract

This article explores the representation of the female urban experience in Colette’s Claudine à Paris by analysing the protagonist’s perception of urban space in the context of the Belle Époque. Within this framework, it will be studied how the city of Paris is constructed on a textual level and how Claudine, a young girl from the countryside, experiences the French metropolis. Her peripheral view reveals an ambivalence towards the capital, which is both a place of discovery and social oppression. As a woman in the early twentieth century, she is not only restricted in her freedom of movement, but is also confronted with being seen as an object of desire by men in the streets.