Author: Academia.edu, ResearchGate

Abstract: »The imaginary of female domesticity in the 19th century is full of references to frequent sexual violence at work. While he is also a writer who has denounced sexual violence, Octave Mirbeau, when he represents Célestine’s diary, does not make Célestine an obvious victim of rape by her master. If the text contains several scenes of sexual violence, the statement denouncing this violence is also elsewhere, in a denunciation of domesticity itself. Domesticity and rape are represented by Mirbeau as two phenomena of self-annihilation in the 19th century, at the time of the emergence of this new sensitivity.« (Source: Classiques Garnier)

Wikipedia: History of Europe: History of France / France in the long nineteenth century | Literature: French literature / Octave Mirbeau | Literature: Novels about rape / The Diary of a Chambermaid (novel) | Literature: Fictional victims of sexual assault / Célestine (Mirbeau), Sex and the law: Rape / Rape in France