Confession and forgiveness in Les armoires vides d’Annie Ernaux

Abstract

Annie Ernaux, the winner of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature, is the author of numerous literary works written in French, which are essentially autobiographical. This article analyzes her first published book, the autobiographical novel Les armoires vides, in light of the works of Jacques Derrida on the Confessions of Saint Augustine and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, considered pioneers of autobiography. According to Derrida, these two authors begin by confessing minor faults that occurred during their teenage years so that the major mistakes made during adulthood can be forgiven beforehand. In Les armoires vides, Annie Ernaux also elaborates a narrative of guilt and forgiveness, in which the unintended pregnancy and illegal abortion, committed by the university student, are presented as results of her childhood in a working-class environment, as the daughter of small and uneducated traders. The naughty acts committed by the protagonist, as well as the distance from her parents’ social environment due to contact with the bourgeoisie of private schools, are narrated to show the inexorability of her major fault, thus exempting her from all the guilt.