Williams, Timothy J.

Dr. Timothy J. Williams is Associate Professor of French at the Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio. He earned graduate degrees in Music Theory and French, as well as his Ph.D. from the University of Kansas. Dr. Williams has published numerous articles on French literature and cinema.

Desire and Persecution in Therese Desqueroux and Other Selected Novels by Francois Mauriac

2007 0-7734-5400-4
This study is a Girardian analysis of François Mauriac’s Thérèse Desqueyroux which reintegrates Thérèse’s act of violence into the hostile conditions in which she lived, suggesting that Thérèse, though an oppressor herself, is largely a persecuted victim in the story that bears her name. A careful analysis of the antagonistic relationship between Thérèse and Anne de La Trave confirms René Girard’s belief that great novelists, such as Mauriac, are instinctively aware of the mimetic nature of human desiring. Moreover, a detailed examination of two unrelated novels, Le sagouin (The Little Misery) and L’agneau (The Lamb), as well as discussion of other selected novels, further reveal that scapegoating is an important, though largely unexplored feature in Mauriac’s fiction.