L’horreur du féminin dans le cycle des Jeunes Filles d’Henry de Montherlant, ou comment on émascule la France

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.