Ernaux, La Place: Lecture 2

Structure

a) Question of découpage (way text is divided up)

• no chapter divisions (no numbering, no subtitles)

• divided into SEGMENTS

• use of spacing (espacement): equivalent of jumping 1/3/6 lines

• individual segments vary from single sentence to several pages consisting of several paragraphs

b) Question of temporal order: segments/sets of segments as bits of time

11-12: a kind of preface: autobiographical focus — AE’s ‘Capes’ exam (= 25 April 1967) — = professional consecration of her entry into the middle class. Key sentence is the last:

‘Je n’ai pas cessé de penser à cette cérémonie jusqu’à l’arrêt du bus, avec colère et une espèce de honte. Le soir même, j’ai écrit à mes parents que j’étais professeur “titulaire”. Ma mere m’a répondu qu’ils étaient très contents pour moi.’

13-23: a set of segments located ‘two months later’: death of father (= 25 June 1967) + subsequent events: understated narrative style.

• Events narrated in a mixture of biographical and autobiographical modes. But a strong sociological input too

•Events presented as ‘scenes’…

• Strong awareness of social class: husband feels ‘déplacé’ (…) – cf title of book.

23-24: first reflection/commentary on the writing of the book, the why and how of the writing.

24-111: = main body of text.

• A chronological sequence of segments: grandparents, parents, their marriage, birth of daughter (=AE), her childhood, adolescence, and beyond

• all leading up (and ‘back’) to death of father —circular structure of book

111-15: set of 8 short segments constituting a kind of epilogue

focus on AE’s sense of shame at having abandoned or betrayed her social class/family/ origins:

‘J’ai fini de mettre au jour l’héritage que j’ai dû déposer au seuil du monde bourgeois et cultivé quand j’y suis entrée.’ (p. 111)

Main Body of Text (24-111): Internal Segmentation

24-44: from 1899 to 1936

• family history: AE’s grandparents, her parents (married in 1924), father’s move from farm labourer to soldier (WW 1) to manual worker (from country to town)

• not just family history, but social history…

• not much first-person narration here

45-46: second reflection/commentary on act of writing

46-54: time-frame = WW 2

• death of parents’ first child (1938)

• birth of AE (1940)

• parents purchase a ‘café-épicerie’, i.e. rise to status of ‘petit commerçants’ (1945)

• again, little use of first-person narrative here: focus on their new lifestyle and social position

54-55: third reflection/commentary on act of writing

55-78: ‘les années de jeunesse’ — time of AE’s youth

• strong biographical focus on father (‘portrait’ of father): his own sense of shame, family’s collective sense of ‘inferiority’

• beginnings of AE’s passage into ‘un autre monde’ and of her corresponding sense of shame at her own parents’ lifestyle

• increasing inclusion of the daughter’s perspective and experience

78-103: AE’s adolescence and move into adulthood

• recounts AE’s ‘emigration towards the petit-bourgeois world’ (p. 79)

• growing cultural divide between daughter and parents

• daughter’s growing sense of shame at her parents and their lifestyle

• her progress to university student

• her middle-class boyfriend, soon to be her husband (reinforces the divide)

• couple move to Annecy in French Alps (p. 96):

‘J’ai glissé dans cette moitié du monde pour laquelle l’autre n’est qu’un décor’

• birth of couple’s first son

103-111: death of father (June 1967)

• AE now narrates the build-up to his death: circularity of book’s structure