19th century french literature

We propose to look at “family plots” in two ways: on the one hand, trying to understand how the idea of family became a central object of narrative in literary works of the 1800s, and, on the other hand, analyzing the means through which fictional families are not only based on fundamental plotting devices, but also deploy those same devices – in the manner of planning, intrigue, or artifice – to construe and interpret themselves and the social world they purport to represent.