When I finish reading Bonjour Tristesse, as a reader, I felt a variety of emotions, including anger, regret, and sadness. Maybe because of my upbringing and my education, I didn’t like this book very much. How did a nineteen-year-old girl come up with such a light-hearted storey? On such a lovely summer day, with beach, sunlight, and the scent of love in the air, the title of the book hints that the plot isn’t as fast paced as the image it depicts.
At the beginning of the novel the author uses nobility to describe sorrow. One cannot help but ask, why can nobility and sorrow be linked together? Cécile’s growth, the unexpected price she paid on her road to youth, I believe, accompanied the formation of this feeling.
Personally, Cécile and Raymond, in some ways, remind me of egoists, hedonists, or individualists. They are the sort of folks that lived life to the fullest after war. Before the arrive of Ann, their lives are freewheeling, as described on page 19: Cécile she just is lying on bed, she thinks about her life and the way of enjoying life, and her life seem full of joy without the will of study. And her father, Raymond, enjoys his life around women. The addition of other characters has just hastened the tragedy’s development; even without Elsa or Cycil, Ann’s fate may be the same, simply because they are not the same sort of people.
Cécile ‘s heart is extremely sensitive, for example, she was very happy when she knew that Ann was coming, but she was afraid of her, and she didn’t even want to pick her up with Raymond.
When Raymond and Ann decide to marry, the plot takes a new turn. Cécile ‘s unpleasant sentiments begin to get stronger in Chapter 6 as she fears for her future existence. When Ann said, “I was afraid of your being frightened of me”, I think she is really a smart and considerate woman. She knew how the little girl felt, and she said it meant she cared. Cécile ‘s inner contradiction is obvious, as in the novel more than one place she praises Ann, praising her character, beauty, her wisdom, and even she seems like a distant and untouchable sacred character. Ann’s control over her behavior makes Cécile unable to accept Ann to change their lives. It’s more like a rebellious child, making excuses for her maverick. She would realize that she was a spoiled girl and that she was planning something wrong, but she instinctively avoided the care and love that Ann brought her.
Cécile and her father show off their character, lover, kiss, make love, behind this passionate life, their hearts may be full of emptiness, lacking and not wanting to be discovered by others, which leads them to not want others to hinder them development of.
What I want to know is What happens, will change the direction of the story？