Forgive me, Father: Filial Guilt and Atonement in the Stendhalian Novel

Abstract

FORGIVE ME, FATHER, FOR I HAVE SINNED. Those words, so ritualized in the Catholic world as to be almost devoid of meaning, come to life in the Stendhalian universe in a slightly different way. In fact, this study could more appropriately be entitled Forgive me, Mother; for in the Stendhalian novel, filial guilt tends to flow like milk from maternal figures, whether it be Mary Mother of God or a flesh-and-blood mother who looms over her remorseful children, source of all pleasure and all pain. Stendhal's protagonists often find themselves caught up in a web of maternal affection from which there is no escape, and where even the desire to escape is perceived as a cause for filial guilt. Fathers, when present, are often either ineffectual or despicable; mothers, on the other hand, both expect and deserve complete and undying affection from their offspring, and generally get it. All negative feelings, of aggression or rejection, toward the mother serve as a source of endless guilt and need for atonement on the part of the child. This attitude, reinforced by the Catholic reverence for the Virgin Mary, traps Stendhalian heroes and heroines between their overpowering need for selfaffirmation and the sacrilege of betraying their mothers. The list of Stendhalian characters whose lives revolve around a core of filial guilt is endless: Julien, Fabrice and ClA©lia, Octave, Lucien, and HA©lA ne, to name a few. Indeed, Lamiel, heroine of Stendhal's final unfinished novel, is perhaps the only protagonist to avoid the burden of filial duty, for the obvious reason: she has the great good fortune to be an orphan. Thus liberated, and skeptical of religion in spite of the efforts of a young and attractive priest, Lamiel remains ignorant of the meaning of guilt. In this study, we will examine the Stendhalian rule to which Lamiel is the glaring exception, as illustrated by three of the more blatant examples of filial guilt and atonement: Octave in Armance, Julien in Le Rouge et le noir, and finally ClA©lia in La Chartreuse de Parme. In her book entitled Black Sun: Depression and Melancholia, French psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva speaks of the necessity of matricide in normal child development. In order to create her/his self, the child must figuratively commit matricide, casting out the previous symbiosis with the mother and, in effect, destroying her. If unfulfilled, this matricidal impulse may then be turned against the self. Kristeva writes: