ObÃºs M102

Sido is a work of Colette

Summary

It is about a collection of memories, evoking the period of the préadolescence (8-12 years). Colette presents the genesis of its personality to it, tells there episodes of a key stage, presented like the time of the origins, a kind of golden age. In fact, the object of the writing is well the search for oneself, of its identity through its heredity.

In this collection, the figure of the mother is capital: of biological it becomes mythical. She thus dominates in a guardian way an idyllic childhood, object of nostalgia for Colette. Does the mother reign symbolically on a garden (paradisiac?) who reproduces in miniature cosmos and it initiates her daughter with the wonders of the universe. The rural world and regional, childhood are largely celebrated there: lyricism is impregnated with a certain paganism.

Analyzes

“Sido becomes little by little the central figure of work, as Colette ages. ”

First edition under the title: Sido or cardinal points in 1929. Work is presented primarily in the form of a portrait of the mother, but is extended to the whole of the family unit and reveals an autobiographical character.

Republication in 1930 of Sido, accompanied by the texts: the captain and the savages . The composition is articulated clearly around the family structure:

-1) the mother (p.5 in LdP)

-2) the father (p.34),

-3) Brothers and the half-sister (p.59 and 78).

The cosmic dimension of the mother

Sido in the center of the pink of the winds

Sido, “pythonisse it”

To be inspired, p.9, it communicates with the cosmic forces: “it collected wind warnings…” p.17 and already p.12. It is in the center of the universe of which it perceives the messages, cf the imposing image which closes Sido, p.31. “In the center of a pink of gardens, winds, rays”, p.15. The microcosm of the garden of St-Saver, spaces closed, opens on the world, the universe macrocosmic. Sky of snow which makes house a “ship native” in the vastness and associates “the abysses of the sky” and the infinitely small of the crystals of snow, p.12. Daydream on “the end of the ground” p.119.

Mythical Sido

The mother takes a mythical dimension: she joins Antée, p.42, by taking again life each time she touches the ground. She is evoked under the image of a Flora and Pomone, guardian divinities. The brothers, marked by maternal heredity, are sylphs, p.64-65. The mother initiates her daughter, nearest to it, with the wonders of the world: indeed, it has of it a knowledge higher than that of the captain, cf p.44, “the poet and townsman” that he has a book learning and artificial nature; he communicates thus badly with the animals.

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