Father(s) and son(s) in Jean Giraudoux, from one mourning to another (History, Society, Literature)

Between the pre-1914 writings and the output of 1930–40, the relationship between father(s) and son(s) evolved in Giraudoux from an Oedipal configuration to the acceptance that comes with mourning paternal ambitions. The cause of this is the historical emergence of a feminine power of which the Giraudoux heroines constitute the image and the acceptance, via the theatrical experience of a transfer of creative power to the public. Far from any fantasy of verticality, the image of a fraternal horizontality will thus impose itself.