Madame Bovary's Ovaries: A Darwinian Look at Literature by Nanelle R. Barash & Nanelle R. Barash

Author:Nanelle R. Barash & Nanelle R. Barash [Barash, Nanelle R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780307423160
Publisher: Random House, Inc.

7

THE CINDERELLA SYNDROME Regarding the Struggles of Stepchildren

These days, more Americans have seen the musical Les Miz than have read Victor Hugo’s novel Les Misérables. In both versions, however, Jean Valjean adopts the young and vulnerable Cosette, who had been living as the fosterling of Monsieur and Madame Thénardier. In both versions, Cosette’s situation under the roof of the innkeeper is less than enviable, although unlike the musical’s presentation of the Thénardiers as lovable scoundrels, Hugo’s account is much grimmer and their treatment of Cosette sinister and downright abusive:

Cosette was in her usual place, seated on the cross-bar under the kitchen table near the hearth. Clad in rags, her bare feet in wooden clogs, she was knitting woolen stockings for the Thénardier children by the light of the fire. . . . Two fresh childish voices could be heard laughing and chattering in the next room, those of Éponine and Azelma [the Thénardiers’ biological offspring; in the musical version, Azelma was deleted]. A leather strap hung from a nail in the wall near the hearth.

As to the condition of Cosette herself:

She was thin and pale, and so small that although she was eight years old she looked no more than six. Her big eyes in their shadowed sockets seemed almost extinguished by the many tears they had shed. Her lips were drawn in the curve of habitual suffering that is to be seen on the faces of the condemned and the incurably sick. Her hands . . . were smothered with chilblains . . . she was always shivering. . . . Her clothes were a collection of rags which would have been lamentable in summer and in winter were disgraceful—torn garments of cotton, with no wool anywhere. Here and there her skin was visible, and her many bruises bore witness to her mistress’s [Madame Thénardier’s] attentions. Her bare legs were rough and red, and the hollow between her shoulder-blades was pathetic.

By contrast, note the state of the Thénardiers’ own children, Éponine and Azelma:

They were two very pretty little girls with a look of the town rather than of the country, very charming, the one with glossy chestnut curls and the other with long dark plaits down her back, both of them lively and plump and clean with a glow of freshness and health that was pleasant to see. They were warmly clad but with a maternal skill which ensured that the thickness of the materials did not detract from their elegance. Winter was provided for but spring was not forgotten. They brought brightness with them, and they entered like reigning beauties. There was assurance in their looks and gaiety, and in the noise they made.

Next, jump ahead from a nineteenth-century French best-seller to a publishing phenomenon of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century: Harry Potter. Any child can confirm that Harry’s early days, growing up as a stepchild within—but not part of—the Dursley family, were more like the experience of Cosette than like that of Éponine and Azelma. The Dursleys’ own son, the despicable Dudley, is ugly, stupid, and spoiled beyond comprehension.

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