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It is to the collection of work Les Jeunes Filles (1936-1939) that Henry de Montherlant owes his reputation as a misogynist writer. In this series of four novels, the writer provoked scandal by recounting various stories of amorous women in the life of the famous writer Pierre Costals. The portrait that Montherlant paints of women is far from flattering. Femininity is presented as a gangrene that not only obliterates the protagonist’s good health, but also that of the nation at large—in the novel, the nation is characterized as a living body that risks emasculation to the feminine. Montherlant’s novel is not, however, completely hostile to women if one decides to interpret it as a playful journey instead; one that traverses the divisive realm of the war of the sexes and defeats its reader’s expectations by refuting oversimplified classifications.

The identification between the soldier and the nation goes back as far as the concept of the nation itself and manliness has always been considered one of the main qualities of the soldier. However, in the French WWI narratives that were published in the inter-war period, soldiers are portrayed not only as dehumanized, but also as emasculated because of the dynamics of modern conflicts. This radical metamorphosis goes hand in hand with the devaluation of both patriotic ideals and the sense of national belonging. Some examples drawn from Barbusse’s Le Feu (1916) and Gabriel Chevallier’s The Fear (1930) provide a framework that can be extended to most of the WWI narratives that were published during the same period. This overview is completed by a final reflection, devoted to the nature of this particular social group of emasculated soldiers. Rather than a feminization of the male group, we can recognize a fluidification of gender oppositions.