The question of gender in La bâtarde by Violette LEDUC

This study explores the question of gender in La Bâtarde an autobiographical work by Violette Leduc in which the author deconstructs traditional gender boundaries and questions the fluidity of sexual identity. Through a personal narrative Violette Leduc blends homosexuality and heterosexuality portraying ambivalent relationships with women and men. She addresses themes such as the absence of the father maternal authority and maternal figures marked by the animus revealing the impact of family structures on the construction of identity. The study also analyses the importance of writing as a tool for redefining gender. For Leduc writing becomes a space of freedom where she explores and expresses the contradictions and conflicts associated with her sexual and social identity. Far from being a simple autobiography La Bâtarde navigates between several literary genres reflecting the complexity and instability of its author's identity. The literary genre itself is blurred oscillating between autobiography novel and autofiction allowing Leduc to transcend traditional norms and classifications.