This study is concerned with literary representations of the female body as a locus of discursive patriarchal power in the context of the two World Wars in France. It complements a body of scholarship focused on the intimate relationships between French women and German soldiers (labeled sentimental/sexual/horizontal collaboration) and the subsequent head shavings of these women, known as 'les tontes', and compensates for the exclusion of valuable works of fiction representative of a collective consciousness deeply marked by such violence. The gendered nature of this punishment indicates a pervasive, pre-existing masculinist anxiety surrounding women’s unrestrained and unmonitored sexuality and a desire to reintegrate post-war women into the patriarchal status quo. I contend that the gendered discourses deployed by the various patriarchal mechanisms of power during both World Wars find continuity in debates surrounding the female body today.
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