La relation entre père et fille dans La Place d’Annie Ernaux : entre crise et réhabilitation
The Relationship Between Father and Daughter in Annie Ernaux’s La Place : Between Crisis and Rehabilitation

Summary/Abstract: The writing of La Place, an autobiographical work by Annie Ernaux, tends to reproduce, as faithfully as possible, the image of the father, with a particular emphasis on his social path, marked by fragility and precariousness, and especially on the dysphoria and the rupture that characterize the relationship with his teenage daughter. The teenager, Annie Ernaux, seems ashamed of her parent. This feeling is due to her father’s social, cultural and communicational lag. The young girl feels scandalized by the regional dialect used by her father, his rough manners and his popular and modest origins. Consequently, this relational crisis prompts the author to seek to rehabilitate the image of her late father through a symbolic reconciliation. She, ultimately, recognizes his silent but certainly fundamental role in her social elevation. Rejecting any desire for idealisation, the author reveals her suffering and admits to having betrayed her father. Thus, for Annie Ernaux, writing proves to be a way to drive out the evil she has experienced and mitigate the guilt and regret that take hold of her.

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