LA FEMME AU MIROIR DES ÂGES DANS METELLA ET ISIDORA DE GEORGE SAND
WOMEN AND AGEING IN GEORGE SAND’S METELLA AND ISIDORA

Summary/Abstract: Women and Ageing in George Sand’s Metella and Isidora. When George Sand published her short story Metella in 1833 at 29 years old, she had just become an author (her two novels Indiana and Valentine) and chosen a pseudonym. The considerably more complex novel Isidora, published in 1845 (age 42), bears the mark of full maturity. Both works (Metella and Isidora) turn on the same plot. The two female characters are confronted with ageing, a crucial turning point for both – imagined for the former, but in the latter fully invested with the writer’s own experience. The thoughts and feelings of the respective heroines facing the reality of growing old interconnect on a comparative level by way of recollection of the past and Sand’s relationship with an alter ego, either attuned to, or different from, herself. Analysis of how the same theme and scenario are perceived at different stages of life allows us to analyse two complementary poetic models – focused on comparisons between past and present, youth and age, and answering to a form of mirror writing which embraces successive generations.

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