GHITEANU SERENELA - RÉSILIENCE ET DEUIL DANS PETITES SCÈNES CAPITALES DE SYLVIE GERMAIN
(pag. 21-29)
The novel “Petites scènes capitales” by Sylvie Germain revolves around the theme of the quest for identity, through mourning and abandonment. The story of Lili, the main character, is, first of all, the journey from childhood to maturity, a story that follows several stages: the absence of the mother, the „mirror” stage, the pervasion of the insecurity that dominates her family through her social interactions, the refusal of becoming a mother as the reproduction of a schema, the experience of love and, at the end, the resilience. Lili’s journey is part of a bigger story, that of a recomposed family, made of destinies strongly affected by mourning. Defining herself means defining, first of all, her family, which represents the weakness of the child character in Germain’s work. The recomposed family provides a partially reassuring and gratifying atmosphere. On the other hand, for the adults, surviving the death of a loved one may prove impossible. The writer adds to this novel of identity reconstruction the metaphysical issue that defines her previous work, a meditation about the meaning of life and the sudden apparition of the sacred in the middle of the profane.