Hennessy, Susie S.

Dr. Susie Hennessy is Associate Professor of French at Missouri Western State University where she teaches all levels of French language, culture and literature. She holds a Ph.D. in French from the University of Colorado. Dr. Hennessy also serves as the Foreign Language Coordinator at Missouri Western. Her research interests include 19th-century fiction as well as language learning pedagogy.

Consumption, Domesticity & the Female Body in Emile Zola’s Fiction

2015 1-4955-0361-5
An unexpected and surprising discovery of the many ways metaphorical language shaped the discourse of domesticity as depicted in women’s press and in Zola’s oeuvre. This book examines that structuring effect as it evolves in the department store, the bedroom and the kitchen.

Mother Figure in Emile Zola's Le Rougon-Macquart

2006 0-7734-5521-3
This book analyzes the role of the mother figure in Emile Zola’s twenty-novel series Les Rougon-Macquart. Zola’s texts demonstrate a continual preoccupation with women as they become mothers, specifically, how their status as reproductive and sexual beings creates a conflict that cannot be reconciled. The author employs theories of determinism and naturalism to shape the mother figure, relying on tainted heredity to place her in situations in which she is bound to fail, either as a mother or as a woman. Motherhood in Les Rougon-Macquart entails an alienation of the woman as she loses her autonomy and her voice. The ideal mother portrayed in the series is a woman who will sacrifice her sexuality and even herself to fit the mold established by Zola. This work will appeal to Zola scholars as well as to scholars of nineteenth-century fiction and women’s studies.