This week I chose to read Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan, which was a novel about the relationship between a daughter and her father, Raymond, along with Anne, who is a woman he plans to marry.
Firstly, I found it was quite odd that Cécile “knew his need of a woman” (6) and “his fancy changed every six months” (6). I also felt quite bad for Cécile to have to know this playboy side of her father. As it may be difficult for her to see Raymond with so many women, and it seems to also negatively contribute to her perspective on relationships as she found the “conception of quick, tempestuous and passing love affairs… enticing.” (11). Thus, this may have been part of the reason that led Cécile to manipulate and use Cyril, who truly loved her. As she didn’t seem to know what a healthy relationship seemed like since she “knew little of love” (11) and had mainly witnessed her father’s quick relationships with mistresses. Raymond also doesn’t seem to consider how his relationships with mistresses would affect Cécile and he didn’t seem to be discreet about them either. He doesn’t seem to care about her and was more focused on his own life with his mistresses.
Initially, I felt bad for Cécile due to her mother’s passing and her father’s actions and behaviors with other women, along with his inability to actually be a father. However, my sympathy started to fade away when she came up with a plan to break up Raymond and Anne’s relationship and use Cyril’s feelings for her as a part of the plan.
Raymond’s lack of proper parenting ultimately led to Cécile having freedom to do whatever she pleases, which definitely led her to being spoiled. She didn’t mind too much of having Elsa with them since she knew Elsa’s presence wouldn’t effect her. However, Anne is seen as a threat to Cécile due to trying to take on a motherly figure to her and throwing some control into Cécile’s life. Despite the fact that there were some actions Anne did that seemed to cross the line, such as making the comment regarding Cécile’s weight and even slapping her. Which definitely didn’t help decrease Cécile’s hatred of her. Cécile was willing to do anything to keep the freedom lifestyle she had and she didn’t seem to care about anyone else.
My question for my classmates is if Raymond had tried to slowly introduce Anne and the idea of marrying her to Cécile, would she still have developed a hatred towards Anne and planned to break them up?
Hi! I really agreed with what you had to say. To answer your question, I think that easing Anne into their lives would’ve surely helped the process, however I don’t think that would’ve made it completely smooth. It would still eventually become a situation that Cecile was not used to, and in turn, i feel like that might’ve eventually made her act out in similar ways when she realized her father’s intentions were real.
Tiffany, I enjoyed reading your post, and I was struck by how it shows both sides of the reading experience that Jon speaks of in this week’s lecture: interpretation (a deeper reading), but also how a book makes us *feel* (attending to the surfaces). I’ve added your question – which also deals with feelings and interpretations – to our list of possible discussion topics!
Hi Tiffany,
I liked what you had to say about Cecile’s upbringing and how it affected her. To answer your question, I don’t think slowly introducing the idea of Anne would would have affected Cecile’s later plans because Anne would still be a threat to her lifestyle.