The Sea, John Banville (p. 112-114)

Résumé du document

The Sea is a novel written by John Banville. Even if it was published in 2006, its story takes place at the end of the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century in France. This extract begins with the meeting and the marriage of Pierre Bonnard and Marthe de Méligny. Then, it offers a long description, both physical and psychological, of Marthe, especially in the light of her husband's paintings. It finishes on the narrator's recollection about a woman named Anna. The interesting thing in this passage lies in the fact that it begins like an ordinary love story, but does not follow that path. This way, it allows us to discuss as to how this text represents a special kind of piece of life. That is why Marthe's description will be first studied. Then, as far as their everyday life is displayed here, we can look into the special relationship existing between Marthe and Pierre. To finish, it seems interesting to study the narration itself.

Extraits

[...] Moreover, their conjugal life is not really described, apart from the fact that Marthe's death seems to hang over it. But, to finish, we can say that to a certain extent this extract is not as special as it could appear at first sight. Indeed, the fact that it happens during the “années folles” and on the Côte d'Azur can be compared to the setting and to the atmosphere of Tender is the night, the novel written by Francis Scott Fitzgerald. [...]

[...] The Sea, John Banville (p. 112-114) One day in 1893 Pierre Bonnard spied a girl getting off a Paris tram and, attracted by her frailty and pale prettiness, followed her to her place of work, a pompes funèbres, where she spent her days sewing pearls on to funeral wreaths. Thus death at the start wove its black ribbon into their lives. He quickly made her acquaintance-I suppose these things were managed with ease and aplomb in the Belle Epoque -and shortly afterwards she left her job, and everything else in her life, and went to live with him. [...]

[...] The Sea is a novel written by John Banville. Even if it was published in 2006, its story takes place at the end of the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th centuries in France. This extract begins with the meeting and the marriage of Pierre Bonnard and Marthe de Méligny. Then, it offers a long description, both physical and psychological, of Marthe, especially in the light of her husband's paintings. It finishes on the narrator's recollection about a woman named Anna. [...]

[...] We can wonder here what does it means: was she his only source of inspiration or was-he so in love with her that he made her live through his painting? All these elements give the impression that the narration itself is not so classical. III/ A special narration A detailed setting The whole extract contains a lot of dates : line 1 ; “thirty years later”, line 11 ; “fifty years later”, line 16 ; line 21 ; “fifteen years later”, line 25 ; a year before . line 30 ; line 31. Their life is so condensed in a series of dates punctuating its major events. [...]

[...] The extract does not allow us to answer this question. If the major part of this extract deals with Marthe and Pierre, from their meeting to her death, passing by their life in Nice and Pierre's painting, its end lets the reader envisage that they are not the main characters of the novel. Far from this, they rather appear as being a pretext to the narrator's recollection evoked at the end of the passage. This idea of pretext may also explain why this text is so special. [...]