Modes Of Seduction

"In Modes of Seduction: Sexual Power in Balzac and Sand, Deborah Houk Schocket studies representations of seduction by two nineteenth-century writers whose works paint inersecting pictures of French society during the Restoration and July Monarchy, highlighting both continuities and discontinuities between Ancien Regime and postrevolutionary literature and society." "Schocket examines both the psychological and social aspects of the relation of domination, and the literary texts comprising this study provide a context for exploring private sexual politics during a time of public social upheaval. The realm of seduction - where forces of desire, power, and sex converge - provides a focal point for Schocket's analysis of gender stereotypes and their subversion, the ties between the sexual drive and the desire for self-affirmation and power over another, and the factors such as class and sex that shape one's identity and ability to influence others. Through its examination of Balzac's and Sand's representations of seduction from the perspectives of feminism, psycho-analysis, and cultural studies, this book sheds lights on erotic relations and the ways in which they are embedded in wider issues of subjectivity and political and social structures."--Jacket.