Exploring Abandonment in No and Me and The Little Jewel
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Themes
Abandonment, loneliness, No and Me, The Little Jewel, Delphine de Vigan, Patrick Modiano, childhood trauma, neglect, parental bond
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Delphine de Vigan's No and Me and Patrick Modiano's The Little Jewel explore themes of abandonment and loneliness through their protagonists.
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[...] : thus expressing her feeling of not being anchored in reality. When she enters the Rue du Quartier-de-Cavalerie, she feels a strange impression: 'at the moment when' I was engaging myself in the Rue du Quartier-de-Cavalerie, I had the impression of being in a provincial town. I was alone walking, and I heard behind mebehind the wall, at the beginning of the street, a regular clattering of hooves » (Ibid. : 79). This image transforms the neighborhood into a familiar but disconcerting space. [...]
[...] This makes the Valadier girl a mirror of Thér's past.issee. On observing this child, Thérissees her own childhood wounds and relives the pain of not having been truly loved or understood. References used: Modiano, P. (2001). The Little Jewel. Paris : Gallimard. De Vigan, D. (2007). No and Me. Paris : Classiques & Cie Collège. [...]
[...] Her physical movements are as many inner journeys. As she explains: 'At night, when I returned alone and arrived at the corner of this Coustou street, I suddenly had the impression of leaving the present and slipping into a zone where time had stopped.'Ibid. : 121). Thérèse and the Valadier girl share the suffering of a lack of sincere attentionisre from the part of their parents. Thérisgrew up in theindiffawareness of a miswho entrusted it to institutions and remained distant. [...]
[...] Are we dealing with an unreliable narrator? - Thérèse and the Valadier girl have several points in common. Which ones? In The Little Jewel of Patrick Modiano, the revening and imagination are omnipresent in the life of Thércase, the narrator, crbeing an atmosphhere ambiguity the reader is often uncertain of the frontibetween the real and the imaginary. This is evident from the beginning of the novel where Thérbelieves to perceive her m (Modiano : 5). What is impossible since his misre is supposedand death. [...]
[...] How did her mother behave towards her? Why do you think No often asks Lou this question: 'We're together, aren't we, Lou, we're together?' (pp 134). In No and Me by Delphine de Vigan, Lou discovers that No lived a childhood marked by violence and neglectgligence. Nvictim of a rape that her motherher mother had suffered at fifteen, No is rejected byisat birth. Her mother had sufferedisre, Suzanne, refused to touch her or to get close to heroccupy her'she, and No is raised by her grandparents. [...]
