Le Corset Expérimental: Fashion, Fertility, and Fiction in Zola’s Pot-Bouille and Au Bonheur des Dames

Abstract

ABSTRACT This essay examines fertility politics in Zola's Pot—Bouille (1882) and Au Bonheur des dames (1883) in terms of the controversial and ubiquitous foundation garment of nineteenth—century women's dress: the corset. The corset exemplifies the novels' concerns with good form — good form meaning both the ideal feminine silhouette and the code of bourgeois propriety. The corset abets a series of reproductive failures in the narratives and thus incarnates contemporary fears about fashion—induced dénatalité. Zola ultimately condemns the hypocrisy of social attitudes that deemed pregnancy “indecent” and underscores the danger of placing intractable constraints — whether sartorial or cultural — on the maternal body.