François Mauriac, Thérèse Desqueyroux

Michael O'Dwyer (Maynooth University)

Ed. by Jennifer Yee, University of Oxford
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.5.2.06: French Writing and Culture: Early Twentieth-century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: Kate Averis (University of Western Australia), Hugo Azerad (University of Cambridge), Patrick ffrench (King's College London), Edward Forman (University of Bristol), Akane Kawakami (Birkbeck, University of London), Siobhán McIlvanney (King's College London), Sinan Richards (King's College London), Tim Unwin (University of Bristol), David Williams (University of Sheffield)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1927

Places

France (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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Recommended Reading

François Mauriac’s

Thérèse Desqueyroux

was published in 1927 at a time when the author was undergoing a religious crisis the details and resolution of which he deals with in

Souffrances et bonheur du chrétien

[Sufferings and happiness of the Christian] published in 1931. It is one of a number of novels he wrote between 1922 and 1932 portraying a negative image of the bourgeois family in his native Bordeaux region. For the bourgeois family portrayed by Mauriac, property and wealth are dominant preoccupations. Behaviour is marked by conformity to conventions and maintenance of appearances. The practice of religion is also primarily an adherence to external practice and convention. Religious practice also shows the influence of Jansenism, the seventeenth-century heresy with its…

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4391 words

Citation: O'Dwyer, Michael. "Thérèse Desqueyroux". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 02 June 2021 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=24189, accessed 19 April 2024.]

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