This week’s reading I found riveting, I truly could not put it down. Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan highlights the dynamic relationship between father and daughter, in this case Cécile and her wealthy father Raymond. The setting takes place on the French Riviera on a summer trip with Cécile, her father and her fathers latest young mistress, Elsa. We can see how the more traditional/conservative character of Anne reintegrating into Raymond’s life really impacts the plot of the story and Cécile’s connection with her dad.
I feel throughout the story that most of the story surrounds the issues Cécile has with Anne, leading her to plot her plan to break them apart. We see Anne making unnecessary comments to Cécile as though she is her own daughter; “To look decent you ought to put on six pounds.” (pg.22), she believes she has the right to say these things to Cécile. Although Anne clearly has issues of her own, I don’t think Raymond gets enough criticism throughout the book. Since it is in Cécile’s perspective, she clearly wants to salvage her relationship with her father and sees him in a positive light. She even describes him; “It was easy for me to love him, for he was kind, generous, gay and fond of me. I cannot imagine a better or more amusing companion.” (pg. 6). He is referred to as a ‘playboy’ throughout the book even though he is 40 years old (creepy that his own daughter talks about this lol). He is a cheater, womanizer and lets Anne around his daughter knowing she has the capabilities to physically (pg.39 slapping her) and verbally abuse her. This pays homage to the stereotype that a man can do no wrong and the woman must be crazy, even though at the end of the day he is not a great partner. Anne is not perfect, but neither is Raymond.
Cyril is a very interesting character, unfortunately he gets caught up in this scheme that Cécile created. He participated to prove and confirm the love he had for Cécile even though it made him very uncomfortable pretending to be in a relationship with Elsa. “Cyril began to torment himself. He hated this role I had forced upon him, and continued in it only because I made him believe it was necessary for our love.” (pg. 116).
With this in mind, I pose this question to my classmates; Do you think Cécile had genuine intentions when planning this and involving Cyril? Would you force this upon your partner even if it made them uncomfortable? Is this taking it too far? Is this a selfish act upon Cécile’s conscience?
Hello! lovely feedback on this weeks reading. To respond to your question, I think Cyril’s involvement in her plan was almost an afterthought. Her aloofness towards him makes me think she only used Cyril because he just happened to be there at her disposal, and around the same age as Elsa. I think this was incredibly selfish because he clearly loved her and would do anything to please her, even if it made him uncomfortable. He was easy to manipulate and she knew this.
Hi Tamara! You make some interesting observations about gender stereotypes and relationships, and these (among other things) would make great tags for your post!
I am also intrigued by your statement that “she clearly wants to salvage her relationship with her father and sees him in a positive light”. I wonder if you can say more about this, and perhaps highlight where you might see signs of this tension arise in the narrative. Is there any tension between the pair following Anne’s death and disappearance? How is their relationship described (by the narrator) in the final two chapters?
Hey Tamara, I definitely agree with you that Raymond gets away with very little criticism in this story. To answer your question, I think Cécile has never had healthy and stable role models to model her own behavior off of and her father has always fully supported her, even when she is failing her classes, so I think her intentions will always be skewed by that unhealthy childhood. I started to really dislike her character once she created this plan and involved Cyril, I would never do anything like this. However, I suppose it is important to also question why Cyril would even do it in the first place too. The whole thing seemed very immature to me.
Hi Tamara, your post got me thinking more about the relationships in the novel at a deeper level. I think Cyril was committed to Cecile so much that he did not even have the boundary to see that Cecile’s plans to use him for her own benefit was a bad idea. He is probably the very rare type of guy to accept everything that his partner would tell him to do just so he would not upset her. I think one of the lessons from reading this novel would be to not confuse love with doing what is right. Cyril has fallen victim to this and the result on Cecil shows the consequences of not learning that lesson.
Cyril was definitely in looove. Love can make you do crazy things I think, and Cyril was no exception. Plus, knowing Cecile’s innate ability to coerce and manipulate her words into subtle action, I’m surprised she didn’t ask Cyril to do something even crazier.