The inter-war years in France were the scene of a prolonged and often violent debate over the form society should take and the rights of conflicting social groups. Within this general atmosphere of controversy the dispute over the role of woman often goes unrecognised, though in fact it emerges continually in the Press and literature of the period, both as a specific political problem (the fight for the enfranchisement of women) and as an element in the overall ideological conflict. The purpose of this study will be to examine the situation of women during those years, and especially to examine the interpretation of women's role in contemporary fiction. The relationship between social reality and literary image will inevitably be a central concern, though the 'reality' of women's position must be understood not only in terms of events and facts, but in terms of a complex formation of ideas, representations and attitudes which govern the practical behaviour of the sexes in a given society. In other words, the notion of 'image', taken here to signify a manner of seeing, a particular conception, will be applied not only in the treatment of literature but also in that of society. The first section of the thesis will attempt to establish, largely by reference to the Press and contemporary publications, the predominance of certain collective images of woman, the second to relate these to the images that emerge from the novels of several contemporary authors. This relationship is inevitably a complex one.