Irène Némirovsky and Cristina Fernández Cubas: two versions of Jezabel through Jean Racine's tragedy <em>Athalie</em>

Abstract

This paper sets out the clear connections between Iréne Némirovsky's novel and the story by Cristina Fernández Cubas, not just on the basis of the biblical story about the Phoenician princess, but also because of the conceivably independent use of Jean Racine's tragedy Athalie. If the Spanish author chose the name Jezabel for a fantastical story, it was because she had read the scene in which the queen appears as a ghost before her daughter with the same appearance with which she had decided to die at the hands of her murderer. She ultimately blended the biblical story with another classic (the tale of Iphis and Anaxarete) with
the same parodic sense as Enrique Jardiel Poncela's comedy El
cadáver del señor García.