Le Sexe faible: A refined and modernized old ours

First written by Bouilhet and rewritten nearly ten years later by Flaubert, Le Sexe faible, a comedy of manners aimed at critiquing women’s power in society, was never performed (ours is the name given to such a work in French theatrical jargon). The tension inherent in the writing of this play, torn between comedic frankness and extreme darkness, perhaps explains its failure. But its contradictions can also be attributed to the transition it makes between the genres of “grande comédie” and “comédie rosse”.