French Peasant Women on the Home Front: Literary Representation of Wartime Everyday Life in Ernest Pérochon’s Novel Les Gardiennes

Abstract

World War I had a profound impact on the French countryside. The mass mobilization of men forced women to take full responsibility for running the farms, agricultural work, and family responsibilities. Despite this, their role has long been underestimated in historiography, which has focused mainly on the experiences of soldiers. The aim of this article is to analyse the literary representation of rural women in Ernest Pérochon’s novel Les Gardiennes, published in 1924 and one of the few books devoted to this subject. Drawing on historical works on World War I and on the situation of peasants in the early twentieth century, the article examines how literary fiction contributes to the formation of collective memory. It also shows that Pérochon’s novel, by offering a rare and multi-dimensional account of the everyday lives of French peasant women during the war, contributes to their better recognition in the history of the conflict.