The narrow Door

the narrow Door is a work of André Gide, published in 1909 and considered by him not a novel, but as an account. This one is told by one of the main characters, Jerome, “flask character implying the flask prose”, which defends besides, in the incipit, to make literature: “Of others could about it have made a book; but the history that I tell here, I put all my force to live it and my virtue is worn there. I will thus write very simply my memories, and if they are in scraps by places, I will not have resort to any invention for the rapiécer or to join them; the effort that I would bring to their finish would obstruct the last pleasure which I hope to find to say them. ”

Gide introduces the voice of the other main character, Alissa, by the means of letters and especially of a diary, part essential of the work, which orders and justifies, with the eyes of the author, the writing of all that precedes. Because if Jerome is the narrator, it is around Alissa that the account revolves. It is a case study and it is in order not to disturb the development of its character that Gide voluntarily has affadi the other figure of the account: “ without such a hero the tragedy had not been possible, or at least it would have intervened, him, in the evolution of the character of the woman - evolution which I wanted very pure”.

Synopsis

Jerome Palissier, young studious boy and orphan of father, dedicates to his virtuous cousin Alissa Bucolin a strong admiration which is transformed into love the day when he discovers that the young girl carries on her shoulders a heavy secrecy: the adultery of his/her mother, made public soon by the escape of the latter. “ This moment decided on my life; I then to still today remind it without anguish. Undoubtedly I did not understand that well imperfectly the cause of the distress of Alissa, but I felt intensely that this distress was too much strong for this small palpitating heart, for this frail body very shaken of sobs. ”

Their relation opens out in a shared religious enthusiasm, deepened by common readings. Year after year, Jerome makes an effort with Alissa and for it with the absolute virtue and has of another wish only to marry it: “ I would despize sky if I were not to find you there. ” However, Alissa discovers that his/her Juliette sister likes, it also, Jerome. Deferring their engagement, it tries to be erased with the profit of its junior. But this one, assured that Jerome does not test anything for it, competes in the sacrifice by marrying a third.

A long separation follows. Juliette, surrounded of the affection of her husband, finds, in the absence of dreamed happiness, an appeasing. Jerome and Alissa can again leave course to their love. The correspondence that they exchange drapes their feeling of such a purity that they fear confrontation with reality. If their first meeting again are poor, the following ones are better. However Alissa rejects any possibility of material and terrestrial happiness once again:

“- What can prefer the heart with happiness? I exclaimed impetuously. She murmured: \ \ - Holiness…”

In order to divert of it his/her cousin - to leave it freer of going towards God - it undertakes to make ugly and affadir his spirit. Diverted Jerome does not recognize any more that which he liked. They separate. Three years later, a new interview between a disappointed Jerome and Alissa painfully thinned down precede by little the death of the young woman. Its diary, placed before the epilog, reveals a fear of happiness too quickly reached, the fear of any desire or incarnation of the love, its obstinacy to be regarded as an obstacle between Jerome and holiness, its immoderate taste for the sacrifice, its conflict dialog with God, his doubts and its pain.

Comment

the narrow Door is the first literary success of Gide. If the critic had already appreciated some of these preceding works, this one enables him to exceed the coterie of the men of letters and not to publish more in loss. Without despizing praises, Gide must however note that a good part of them rest on a misunderstanding. Whereas the book is designed like during with Immoraliste , like the other pouring of the same excess, the criticism, which had formerly compared it to Michel, compares it from now on to Alissa and believes it returned in the narrow bosom of the virtue. Francis James, which, like Claudel, had in vain tried to convert Gide with Catholicism earlier a few years, draws up of Alissa a dithyrambic portrait. Others see in this “ refinement of virtue ” “ a culprit aberration ” and reproach Gide a book “ morbid and unhealthy ”.

If the divergent opinion, no one does not seem to perceive the distance which separates Gide from its heroin and the critical dimension of work. It is true that the parallels between the fiction and the life of author are numerous and that it is trying to compare one to the other. However the narrow Door , just like Immoraliste , is only one of the possible ones that Gide explores literarily while seeking, personally, other balances. “ Of this succession of states, it makes the sum: it would be well to know little about it which to expect that he prefers none. They all cohabit in him, coudoient there, fight, strengthen there there”, explains Henri Ghéon in an article of April 1910. It is given the responsability to answer those which see in this work a result and a starter of conversion: “ the chronology of the works does not mean anything in its case. If the narrow Door were born the last, at the most beautiful time, it is mere chance, and not because it translates a new moral attitude. ” And finally, it points out this essential component: “ One finds at the origin of the narrow Door, so astonishing that appears, an intention of satire: the satire of the self-sacrifice. However which gift of sincerity, of assertion resounds there. The novelist was conquered by his heroin, it married his madness. ”

the narrow Door is thus only one part of the puzzle which the work of André Gide constitutes and one can truly include/understand it only by taking account of his place as a whole, in particular in its close relationship with Immoraliste .

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