Disguise in George Sand’s Novels

Sandian heroines swirl around men in their sororal and sartorial disguises like moths around candle flames. However, as Disguise in George Sand’s Novels illustrates, the disguise is not an instrument to seduce men but rather to assert the heroines’ true selves. The portrayal of female and androgynous protagonists in Rose et Blanche (1831), Indiana (1832), Lélia (1833/39), Gabriel (1839), Consuelo (1842), and La Comtesse de Rudolstadt (1844) is a metaphor to demonstrate the continuity of identities before and after the disguise as George Sand stipulates in her theory of the ménechme. Disguise in George Sand’s Novels explores the maturation process of Romantic and artistically inclined heroines and highlights the spiritual meaning of the disguise as a rite of passage for the birth of a new type of protagonist: spiritual, self-assertive, and dedicated to erasing gender inequality and helping the poor.

The Author: Françoise Ghillebaert is Associate Professor of French at The University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras campus. She received her Ph.D. in French literature from The University of Texas at Austin. She is the founder and chief editor of the electronic journal Crisolenguas for the Department of Foreign Languages at The University of Puerto Rico. She served as guest editor of a special issue of Postscript: Essays in Films and the Humanities dedicated to the Double in Movies (2003). Ghillebaert has received grants from the Fondo Institucional para la Investigación and from the Programa de Estudios de la Mujer y el Género awarded by The University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras campus.

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