Meet Marianne
Never one to judge a book by its cover, I judge books by their titles. Take, for example, the forthcoming book about the French fascination with Mormon culture, Marianne Meets the Mormons: Representations of Mormonism in Nineteenth-century France. Who is this Marianne character? And why is she meeting the Mormons? I imagine a quiet Parisian street. Marianne is on her way home from the boulangerie, baguette under her arm. Two young missionaries step into her view. With wide smiles, they hold out Le Livre de Mormon. You can guess the rest of the story. Of course, Marianne’s identity is more complicated than this imaginary vignette suggests. Her life really begins in the years following the French Revolution when, after removing King Louis XVI from power, the French concoct a new female symbol to personify their political ideals. Eugène Delacroix later paints her as the busty and courageous standard-bearer in his timeless Liberty Leading the People from 1830. Or, for a more contemporary eye, she’s the cover model of Coldplay’s 2008 album Viva la Vida, or Death and All His Friends. In either case, Marianne is real and invented; a symbol of revolutionary identity and French liberty, and a metaphor through which nineteenth-century France defined its nation-hood vis-à-vis the many geographical, religious, and political “others” forming around them.
Scholars Heather Belnap, Corry Cropper, and Daryl Lee prove that Marianne met the Mormons again and again in art, journalism, and French popular culture. And that with each meeting, the Mormons helped Marianne formulate French identity at critical moments in French history. Often these meetings told stories of inverted expectations and comic hubris (polygamy jokes abound). Or they simulated Mormonism for an audience unfamiliar with the realities of the American West and LDS history. Reimagining their meetings, I can’t help but wonder, perhaps Marianne helped the Mormons figure themselves out a little bit, too?—Brontë Hebdon (The University of Illinois Press volume will be released October 25.)
