Nothomb

Amélie Nothomb’s novel Bluebeard, a sort of “literary rewriting” and a “hypertext” of Perrault’s Bluebeard, in a new Nothomb style, is one of the fields of study that reflect the social and geographical effects on literary production. The main objective of this research will be to analyze, in an interdisciplinary perspective while assuming a new methodological construction, the sociological dimensions that fall under the biography of Amélie Nothomb, from Bourdieu’s point of view and with the aim of highlighting a certain «habitus» in Nothomb: a female personality strongly built by an ability to adapt to social constraints. This is also well reflected in this work through the female main character. We also distinguish the geographical elements involved in the new creation of Bluebeard, and their relationship to the “powerful woman” “habitus” of the writer. This exploratory analytical research follows certain approaches concerning «literary geography», such as those of Gaston Bachelard and Michel Collot, and is also based on the sociological reflections of Pierre Bourdieu and Anthony Giddens. As a result, this paper highlights the importance of these factors within the stylistic process in Bluebeard, which is a sort of “feminine rewriting” in which Nothomb creates a new inspiration of a geographical space within which she gives her own view of history and social context.