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

Forgive me, Father: Filial Guilt and Atonement in the Stendhalian Novel Lisa G. Algazi 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 Clélia, Octave, Lucien, and Hélène, 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 Clélia 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: Vol. XXXIX, No. 2 3 L'Esprit Créateur ... the maternal object having been introjected, the depressive or melancholic putting to death of the self is what follows, instead of matricide. ... In order to protect mother I kill myself .... Thus my hatred is safe and my matricidal guilt erased . . . .' According to Kristeva, daughters, or homosexual sons, have more difficulty accomplishing the obligatory matricide due to their close identification with the mother. For a daughter to destroy the mother, she must also in a sense destroy herself. Therefore, the possibility of suicide becomes much greater for daughters than for heterosexual sons. This analysis of the difficulty of mother/child separation and of matricidal guilt leads us to the first case of filial guilt and the ultimate means of atonement, through suicide. According to Kristevan theory, when the mother is perceived as a sublime, or positive, figure, filial guilt prevents the child from attempting the separation necessary to his or her own subjectivity. It is precisely this problem that confronts Octave, the protagonist of Stendhal's first novel, Armance. In Armance, both the title character and Mme de Malivert act as traditional maternal figures in relation to Octave. Armance, Octave's orphaned cousin on his mother's side, becomes an extension of Mme de Malivert, Octave's mother. Taken as a unit, these two women strive to nurture and protect the childlike Octave from society and from himself. Octave seems more than willing to be nurtured. In the first pages of the novel, we learn that, although he has sworn never to fall in love, Octave makes an exception for his young and pretty mother "qu'il aimait...