The Discursive Construction of a Restrictive Feminine Norm in the Interwar Press: A Case Study of the “Poisoner” Figure

Abstract

This article examines how the interwar French press contributed to constructing and naturalizing a constraining feminine norm. Drawing on a textometric analysis of 17 press articles covering the Antoinette Sierri poisoning case (1925–1926) - supplemented by coverage of the Violette Nozières affair (1933) - we show how media discourses do not merely represent female criminals but actively produce them as deviant against an implicit gender norm. Using discourse analysis tools (Maingueneau, 1987, 2004; Amossy, 2000; Rabatel, 2008), we apply a structured coding protocol to four analytic categories (lexical fields, modalizations, topoi, argumentative structures) and identify the discursive mechanisms through which the "monstrous woman" is constructed, legitimized, and internalized. The literary counter-discourse - from Mauriac's Thérèse Desqueyroux to the Surrealist reception of Nozières - is examined as a site of resistance to these mechanisms.