The Colony

the Colony is a Comédie in Prose of a act and 18 Scène S, published by Marivaux in December 1750 in the Mercure de France .

At the time its representation with the Theater-Italian of Paris the June 18th 1729, the New Colony had not had least success and one played it only once. Marivaux withdrew it the following day and did not make it print, but it modified it, reducing it to an act. It made it play in company in this new form and published it in this last form in Mercury of December 1750.

More than one part baroque, the Colony the sarcastic representation of an island in the middle of “nowhere” where the women have the idea to seize the power, is true a Satire where the author denounces the institutions of the company of his time. Behind a pretense of Utopia, the Colony , with its dialogs full with sarcastic remarks and tinted of a Irony corrosive and sour, starts, in spite of a conclusion politically and sexually conforms to the ideas in place since millenia, large the feminist movements which will agitate the company later two centuries. This comedy sharp and rich in bounces, with the surprisingly modern matter, done of Marivaux one of the precursors of the Women's Liberation.

Characters

Arthénice , noble woman.
Mrs Sorbin , woman of craftsman.
Mr Sorbin , husband of Mrs Sorbin.
Timagène , noble man.
Lina , girl of Mrs Sorbin.
Persinet , young man of the people, lover of Lina.
Hermocrate , another noble.
Troupe of women , as well noble as of the people.

History

A group of men and women of an overcome country were constrained to take refuge on an island. Placed in front of the obligation to give institutions, one must proceed to the election of two new governors of the island: the Timagène lord will represent the Noblesse, the Sorbin craftsman the Third-state. But, refusing that the latter do not admit them with the government, the women, who do not agree any more to live under the dependence of the men decide to establish laws and take the men of runs while forming their own constitutional committee. Arthénice will represent the nobility and Mrs. Sorbin the third state. Also wanting to abolish the love and the marriage, considered as a pure constraint, one orders with the girl of Mrs. Sorbin, Lina, not to more see Persinet, which she likes and which likes it. Guest to make a profession of faith against the love, Lina will not be able to be however solved there. In the same way, Mrs Sorbin will make issue, with the anger of the other women who rebiffent themselves, that those must make ugly. When Arthénice and Mrs Sorbin intimate to the men the order to give them, under penalty of eternal separation, access to all the functions which they exert, those will delegate their power to Hermocrate. Timagene will think of a stratagem to put an end to the coup d'etat women by pretexting an attack of the savages. The men pretending to want to send them to the combat, the female battalion loses capacity and Mrs Sorbin called to her husband: Will beat you, I go to our household. Timagene promises to the women to have care of their rights in the uses which will be established.

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