First morning

First Morning is a work of sociology of Jean-Claude Kaufman published in 2002. As its title indicates it, this work described the morning which follows the first night of a meeting in love.

First part: the project

The principal question:

In First morning , Kaufmann seeks to show: in what the first morning between two people is it determining in the birth and the construction of a history of love? It is about the key question of the work, of its problems. Kaufmann wants to show qu all is played for the couple in the first alarm clock side-by-side. That this one occurs very quickly after the meeting or not.

Secondary questions

To answer this principal question and to conclude its sociological study, Kaufmann will raise other questions which it will try to answer.

It will wonder about all the small details of the first morning, details which one can easily judge pain-killers but which in fact translate many things which one cannot suspect, it thus will carry out a very fine analysis.

Analysis of the plan

Kaufmann composes its work in 3 great parts.

First part: scenes of the morning

First of all, as a sociologist its first work is the observation . Indeed it must beforehand observe and describe the phenomenon which it wishes to study before analyzing it. It is thus harnessed to describe via the extracts of talks (since it cannot be involved in the intimacy of concerned) all the phases of this morning. Awakening at the exit of the bed, while passing by various intermediate phases all these situations are described. The most current cases of figures being presented as well as the problems being able to intervene.

The first problem which encounters the protagonists is the awakening. Indeed, each one needs a certain time (more or less long) “to emerge”, to find its spirits. There exist also an identity phase of undulation, there acts of some the second necessary ones to find continuity, the biographical wire (“Where am I? With which? What did it occur the day before? …”). According to the place where the first alarm clock occurs (at his place, at it, in parents, neutral places.), the impressions can be very different.

Once the awaked partner, remains to be seen that to make in this bed soft. Each one having its own practices, some will be then more of the morning and will rise very easily whereas others need more than time and appreciate to remain with the bed. It is then necessary to adapt to the other that which is not always obvious. Then what to make in this bed, to discuss banalities? To embrace itself to fill the white? Each one plays its part then.

Come then the moment from the exit of the bed. (It is indeed not possible for various reasons indefinitely to remain with the bed!) This moment of the first morning poses many problems with the young people in love: first of all fear of the glance of the other. In the morning plus nothing does not resemble the day before, the glance seems different, ready with all criticisms, much more malevolent than the day before. The author observes that those which showed the least modest the day before and during the night try perhaps even more than the others to hide glance of their partner at the small day. The repairing constitutes a great test, as well for the men as for the women. “In the morning, the glance thus discovers a very new body, partly unknown, much more ordinary. The glance cooled and other thoughts order it. ” (p.47)

To improve the vision of the other, it is a question of dealing with its toilet, because the morning is shared between “the search for authenticity and the recourse to artifices for a setting in advantageous scene of oneself” since indeed the pure authenticity is not conceivable from a hygienic point of view (example of the brushing of the teeth to fight against the bad breath.) The discovery of the bathroom is the occasion of multiple discoveries which are as many indices on the personality of the other. Another problem of the same order the passage to the toilets.

The breakfast constitutes one great moment of the relation, indeed it is at this time that the catch of distance is largest with the softness of cocoon-reads, the two partners are found face to face in a different context which then brings them closer to a hard reality. The breakfasts of the first mornings are very different between them, (with the bed, in family, table has, with crescents…) and the protagonists often have many surprises at the time to carry out simple ordinary gestures. The author reveals in this part that in much of case makes it go to seek the crescents, reveals of a need to escape, to move away one moment from this adventure to only find themselves and take stock.

The catch of the breakfast with the family is one difficult moment to manage, the cut with the last night is sharp, and the practices of the family appear often very strange with the eyes of the host. For the author it is with the breakfast that the stakes is most important, since there is transition with the ordinary life, each one tries as well as possible to regulate its behavior, it is here that the first practices settle. It is also about the moment when each one made the assessment, raises questions, analyzes. It is here also that in love ones will decide continuation of their day together or not.

Here the step of the author appears completely logical, one observes a range since cocoon-reads (simple prolongation of the fusional night), until the catch of distance from the passage to the bathroom and the roleplays calculated of small lunched. One passes well from the heat towards the cold, of private with the public.

Second part: horrors and happinesses of the first mornings

In this second part, Kaufmann analyzes the first mornings and tries to classify them in various categories (always starting from its examples). It calls the “mornings sorrows” those which were difficult and delicate for the protagonists without however that those prove to be the last for the couples. It distinguishes them from the “magic” mornings which let predict a bright future, as well as “mornings pain-killers” without distinguishing marks.

He then explains in this part why the mornings are often “sorrows” when the situation was not clearly established the day before. Indeed, in many cases, there were ambiguities and thus the clarifications of the alarm clock are all the more painful. Moreover the situation is often tended since there can be a great difference between “ego of the morning” and it “me of the evening” like between the reactions of the two partners.

With regard to the “magic” mornings Kaufmann specifies that those are it first of all thanks to the felt pride, pride to have spent the night with a partner which one is proud. But more especially that the enchantment is proportional to engagement in love. Indeed if the two partners know one like the other which this adventure will last only one night, it will not appear to them to in no case like marvellous, but like a simple stage to be passed.

As for them the mornings “pain-killers” are these mornings “like the others” where sometimes the protagonists closed themselves with the too unpleasant events to give their evaluation to later.

To characterize these situations of the morning, Kaufmann resorts to the concept of saddle-oyster popularized by Emile Durkheim in his study on the suicide, and which “characterizes a situation where an actor does not manage any more to fall under stable reference marks melting his thought and his action”. The ambiguity of the definitions between the partners (we are still friendly? More? That is it of our relation?), the complexity of the situation, the loss of landmarks make certain first mornings the typical situation of saddle-oyster.

This part is completely logical, since the author carries out here a classification by kind.

Third part: the couple is played in first morning

The title of this part is clear, it is in this one that Kaufmann shows the real stakes of the first mornings and detects the effects of those on the continuation of the adventure in love. It also tries to synthesize the relations between two people as of the morning and to answer the question: which are the good mannerss to adopt (distance, role, how to react vis-a-vis practices different as of his? …) It is in this part that one discovers the results to which this study leads, in particular the change of the model in love.

Indeed in this part, the author seeks to show that simple details hardly noticed at the time it first morning could be mornings thereafter after mornings causes irritation, of rancour. These details are often the simple ones and comprehensible differences in “manners” of practices. (It is however well fortunately not always the case!) But what complicates obviously the appreciation of the observer-actors is the fact that they are put in scene in unusual attitudes and being mistaken mutually on their thoughts and manners while hoping to hide all the defects and to show only best themselves. It is according to Goffman of the rules the interaction, of the face-to-face discussion.

In this part, Kaufmann develops the continuation of the events (after this first morning) for the actors as well as the way in which one decides in love then it explains the change of the model in love, subject which will be developed in the third part.

Second part: methodology

To complete this work, the author obviously could not form part of the first private mornings, (which would not have been any more besides of the first mornings!). He could not be either satisfied only with these first personal mornings. He has then to carry out a method of investigation which one names maintenance. Here a discussion with only one person would not be to in no case coherent, the goal being to collect information and impressions of the two partners having lived the same first morning.

It is also very important to question a great number of couple of various social categories, of age different to have a representative sample of the majority of the people. However the author specifies here that he considers them more as advisers rather than sample. The diversity of a^âges and the mediums selected is here a simple guarantee for the variety of the experiments collected and its work will not lead to a comparative study between categories.

The author then chose to question 23 people including 12 women and 11 men, from 23 to 77 years. Their activities are very diverse, of unemployed, student, employee, psychologist, senior officer, reprocessed. (Of the more precise information on these people at the end of the work in a biographical index however by respect the names are available were changed.) One can also noticed that the young people are surreprésentés. To propose to a total variety the author also takes as subject of maintenance a homosexual young man, indeed, also brings to him important information concerning these first mornings.

To begin these talks the author first of all chose to start with a very free and opened question: “the various first mornings that you lived, that evokes you which ideas? Which memories return to you initially? ” This method makes it possible not to block questioned as of the beginning, not to influence it. They then testify with their own words and in a very spontaneous way of associations of ideas that evoked the topic of the first morning to them. It is then requested from each person to select one or the first two mornings which will have to be systematically detailed and to provide faster elements relating to other experiments.

Thereafter, the author then guided more maintenance by putting very precise questions to obtain the desired answer and to make re-appear the memories, sometimes remote. He has then to treat all the results obtained. Progressively of the book it quotes extracts of talks unceasingly is to illustrate an idea that it has just developed, is on the contrary it confronts and analyzes various extracts which is contradicted or supplemented to deduce an idea from it, a concept. It establishes general information compared to the frequency of a certain answer in the talks.

The author to carry out this investigation also wondered about the first mornings in the literature and the cinema to see how they were represented through these tools. Thus, at the beginning of each under chapter, the author proposes an extract of novel allowing to illustrate the matter to be followed. The author also refers to other civilizations, other times to compare the subject.

He also uses many references to other sociologists such Michel Bozon, Emile Durkheim, Alberoni, Peter Berger, Handsfried Kellner, Luckmann, Goffman and with their work, parallels. He réapproprie then their concepts or uses them to clear up his matter. He quotes of many times itself and refers to the answers obtained during his old work. Indeed, Kaufmann worked already much on the relations of couples.

Third part: results

Secondary questions

The selected author to sow the results with the secondary questions throughout the work, progressively of the discoveries. To propose a conclusion of it, one can say that Kaufmann shows the importance of all the details of the first morning. Indeed according to him, if the couple is promised with a sufficiently long future, the manners of making which settle more or less unconsciously as of the beginnings are likely to have durable effects. “The practices are incorporated very quickly and it is then difficult to modify them. Better is thus worth to be wary at the time founder, to avoid having to carry out then painful and often vain combat. ” For the author all is played more particularly in the scene of the breakfast since it is there that the transition with the ordinary one is carried out. The stakes are thus strongly important since the least unimportant gesture will be in fact founder of the repercussions in the marital future.

The author also discovers that the love consists of a multitude of various and astonishing feelings, as the fear which it finds in way réccurente in all the talks: “fear of disappointing” “fear of engagement”, “fear of the glance of the other”… He also discovers that the thought in love is built on a double level, she can be contradictory.

The principal question

For the author the love affair with changed more particularly the birth of the history of love evolves/moves. Indeed, Kaufmann recalls that in the very first companies the women were exchanged between families and that these exchanges were governs by very strict rules. The marriage was not then to in no case a business private but a public affair. For a long time the marriage then will keep a trace of this institutional influence. It is only at the 20th century thanks to the novels and the theater that a new vision of the things based on the love will appear. However nothing changes radically in the behaviors.

The sentimental love was then born from the novel. It can be defines as “a fight impassioned against the obstacles, it is characterized by the exacerbation of the feelings, the idealization of the partner while magnifiant the love object”. However this romantic model loses in purity as from the years 7O with “the automation of sexual”. According to the author the romantic model disappears, indeed, the individual is not satisfied more from now on of only one great original emotion, but wishes to multiply the experiments and the partner during the existence. Does the romantic model disappear in practice but not in the ideas since it is always (but for how long still?) present in literature and at the cinema, but especially in our way has all to speak and idealize the love. (Example: first stories of love of the young girls)

The author thus seeks to show that the situation presents is characterized by the decline of the romantic model for a model much vaguer, detached of any tradition. The individuals live through evolutionary, sinuous trajectories which they build all while being let define by the force of the things by this idea of destiny from which they are not able to be detached. The practices in love change, seek new ways, the company cannot gifts not remained attached to an old model which constitutes a brake. The least aspect of what surrounds us from now on is questioned, prone to the debate, all is then generalized however kaufmann affirms that nothing replaces the personal experimentation. And the first morning represents today a “crucial step of the experimentation” The place of the first morning in the experimentation occupies a place even more important when the history suddenly began the day before without preliminary history, nor declaration of love (the change relates in particular to the change of the mode of expression of the feelings) all is played then in a very intense way and very rapid. The experimentation does not relate solely on the other but to oneself in the first morning.

The first mornings thus became of the crucial moments in the construction of a marital history, which they are “squeaking” or which they synonymous with “love at first sight are shifted. ”

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