Viper with the fist

Vipère with the fist is largely a Romance Autobiographique of Herve Bazin, published in 1948.

The book describes childhood and the Adolescence of the narrator, Jean Rezeau, known as Brew-Bubble . This last describes its relationship with its family, and in particular its mother, known as Folcoche , a genuine mantle. This novel is door-close between the unworthy mother, the three martyrized children, the outgoing father and a changing Précepteur.

The Rezeau family

The Rezeau family belongs to the old middle-class of the Vendée, downward of Claude Rezeau, Vendean captain and member of the Chouans in XVIIIième century. His/her son, Ferdinand Rezeau was secretary of the applicant to the throne of France, then appointed preserving and royalist of the French Republic. Their descendants were combined with the Aristocratie, in particular to the Viscounts of Cherbaye, to the barons de Saint-Elme, and also with the family of Tanton, faithful to the Bourbons. The stronghold of the family has been for 200 years with Solédot, village close to Angers, where the Beautiful-Angerie is located, the family property. Probably resulting from a bakery , the Beautiful-Angerie , thanks to the addition of buildings, turrets, a vault and greenhouses, fact appears of castle, surrounded by an immense park, forests and of three farms, main income of the family. In 1922, date marking the beginning of the novel, Jean, the narrator, shows the possibility for to us manners of its family: the marriages are arranged by the parents, the children address as vous their father and their mother, and the practice of Catholicism governs the days: prayer several times per day, confession, permanent presence of an abbot within the family. However, because of the devaluation of the franc wanted by the president Raymond Poincaré, Rezeau are “  middle-class man pauvres  ”: in spite of their great property and their very preserving family habits, they have a way of life restricted in a very uncomfortable residence where there is neither electricity, nor running water.

Main characters

Jean Rezeau: known as Brew-Bubble , narrator of the novel, he is the second wire of Jacques and Paule Rezeau. Wire hated by his mother, it enters in rebellion with her and rises against her medium. He inherited his mother the hardness of character and the protruding chin.

Paule Rezeau: Paule Pluvignec, married to Jacques Rézeau. Called “Folcoche” by Fréddie, it is hated by his/her children. Paule is the girl of a senator Parisien who imposed a marriage with an old and respected middle-class family to him: Rézeau. In addition to its cruelty, it is described like rather salts and terribly miserly. It has the dry hair and the protruding chin. It has a passion for the stamps and the keys, which it carefully lock up in a cupboard of which the " key principale" do not leave its " between-sein".

Jacques Rezeau: the father, and also the " Chief of Famille" , because of being the elder one of Rezeau. He is professor in right and teaching in university but prefers more not to work because for him, to have an employment, it is to déchoir. To trust of the glory of its ancestors, it is with much pride that he declares " chief of name and the armes" of its family. He mistakes the " new riches" (of which made to party its wife) and the " small peuple". It would be affectionate with his children but, unfortunately, it does not find courage to be opposed to his wife who them martyrise. Then he prefers to escape while taking refuge in his research on the various species of flies or in his genealogical explorations.

Ferdinand Rezeau: known as Figure or Freddie , he is the older brother of Jean. Just like his/her father, it does not have courage to be opposed to his mother and sudden without stumbling the inflicted ill treatments. Although described like a " figure molle" , he second always his Jean brother and admires it for his courage and his audacity. But he does not hesitate to escape as soon as a danger arises, leaving his brother in the embarrassment.

Marcel Rezeau: known as Cropette , it is the third and the last wire of the family. Born in China where his/her parents lived then, it is the only one to be raised by his mother, who shows in her connection a certain indulgence. Although interdependent seemingly of his brothers, it can obtain his mother of small favors, at the price of treasons. Particularly intelligent, it is however loose and opportunist.

abbots: They are seven to follow one another the post of tutor of the Rezeau children and chaplain of the family. The children call them BI, BII, BIII… until BVII . Among them, BI , the Father Trubel , is congédié for bad conduct with the girls of the farmers. BV , the Father Vadeboncoeur , tuberculous Canadian, also sticks him to the children. He is returned in the absence of Jacques Rezeau. And finally, BVII , the Father Trap , a cruel abbot and violent one chosen by Folcoche for " to subdue the enfants".

Alphonsine: known as Fine , is the deaf and dumb cooker of Beautiful Angerie. Folcoche benefits from its handicap to impose to him all the drudgeries of the house with wages passing very close to the ridiculous one. It communicates by a whole of gestures that Rezeau called the Finnish . Its affection towards the children is unceasingly blocked by the schemes of Folcoche which hates it. But it is protected because of its seniority in the family.

Supporting characters

Marie Rezeau: mother of Jacques, it raised his grandchildren Jean and Ferdinand when their parents were in China. Although intransigent on the education of the children, it sincerely loves her grandchildren who live near it a happy existence. Its death of a crisis of uraemia causes the return of the parents to the Beautiful-Angerie .

Rene Rezeau: great-uncle of the children, he is writer and member of the French Academy to the great pride of the Rezeau family members. Moreover, its catholic virtues and arts persons enabled him to be decorated by the pope about commander about Saint-Gregoire the Large one and chevalier of the Legion of Honor.

Ernestine Lion: it is controlling it of the Rezeau children. It is congédiée quickly by Folcoche when it tries to protect the children from their mother.

the Families Perrault , Barbelivien and Huault : they are the sharecroppers of the Rezeau farms. They live poorly and consider with much respect the family which employs them since several generations. Among them, Madeleine Barbelivien who initiate Jean with the sexual intercourse, and Jean Perrault, Ti-Jean , the accomplice of the Rezeau children who brings food in hiding-place to them.

the other family members Rezeau : Jacques Rezeau has a young brother, the abbot Michel Rezeau , protonotaire apostolic envoy in Tunisia. Jacques also has six sisters, the countess Batolomi , countess of Empire, the baroness of Saddle of Auzelle , living with the La Rochelle, Mrs Torure , widow and " without the sou" , victim of the avarice of Folcoche , and finally three another sisters, nuns. All deserted the Beautiful-Angerie at the time of the arrival from Folcoche   ; without Jean, the narrator, clarifying it precisely, they know all the true nature of Folcoche .

Mister and Mrs Pluvignec: parents of Folcoche. He is senator in Paris and they live both in a luxurious private mansion, without being concerned with their daughter, and even less their grandchildren.

the family of Kervazec: it is the rival family of Rezeau with which it maintains the fashionable relations. If Kervazec have in their family a cardinal, they do not have the indult, privilege making it possible to celebrate the mass in their private vault.

Summary of the novel

1924. Jean and Ferdinand are raised by their paternal grandmother in the family castle of Beautiful Angerie, a few kilometres from Angers. The death of their grandmother obliges their parents, Jacques and Paule, to leave China where the father occupies a post of judge, to return to deal with their children.

Impatiently and curiosity, the two children await their parents and the little brother whom they do not know on the station platform. While being thrown on their mother to embrace it, they are violently made slap by the latter who wishes to get out quietly of the train. Their new little brother, Marcel, address a safety to them almost froid  ; only their father embraces them.

Of return to the castle, the family and the personnel are convened in the dining room to listen to the new organization of the famille : the father announces a Spartan timetable, with mass in the vault deprived as of the beginning of the day, towards 5:30, and with his completion towards 21:30. During the day, the studies are exempted by the abbot who lives with them. Suddenly, the father takes pretext of have flies to prick to withdraw themselves, thus leaving his wife, Paule, to announce his own directives: the children will not be entitled any more to the coffee with milk the morning but with soup, they will have the hair mowed by measurement of hygiene and, by safety, it removes the stoves, the eiderdowns and the cushions in their room. It confiscates all to them their personal objects. As for the hours of re-creations, they must be devoted to the maintenance of the park. To use their shoes and socks, it forces the port of heavy shoes to them, only they " peuvent" to carry with straw if the weather is cold…

In little time, the children famished, are refrigerated, deprived of any comfort, any tenderness, and constantly are prone to brimades, punishments or humiliations on behalf of their mother, under the eye of their father who seems to prefer anything to see to avoid a conflict with his wife.

During meal, she does not hesitate to violently prick one of her sons with the fork if it does not adopt a behavior which she considers correct. When controlling it tries to interpose, Paule returns it immediately, as it already did for all the personnel, except for Fine, the old cooker, at its thank you of the fact which is deaf and dumb. The children who hate their mother find him the nickname which it carries henceforth permanently: " Folcoche" , contraction of Insane and Cochonne. They engrave everywhere where they can it of the ritual VF, meaning Vengeance with Folcoche. Jean, the narrator, is the son whom she hates more because it shows a certain audacity, in particular by intensely fixing it during the meals.

After a shooting party with their father who allowed the children to know a few moments of happiness, an incident occurs: Folcoche, furious to see the happy children decides to deprive them of this leisure; but the father puts himself suddenly in anger and orders with his wife to leave the children in peace, then quickly, it returns to the castle, terrified by his transport. Humiliated, Folcoche isolates the children in one from the parts, and beats them violently. But Jean, tries to defend himself what increases the aggressiveness of Folcoche. It strikes it until exhaustion. With the meal, the father can only notice the traces of blow on the face of his son but once more, he prefers anything to say, and can only address one to smile moved to his/her son.

After controlling, it is the abbot who is congédié, and replaced by a new abbot that Folcoche hopes firmer with the children. During a meal, Folcoche is brutally taken of faintness: a hepatic crisis occurs and requires an operation which obliges it with a hospitalization of several months. It is for the children one period soft: they become close to their father and all prohibitions of formerly jump. Again, they can eat butter and jam, walk in the park. They go even until exploding of joy by learning that their mother is dying. But their wish will not be exaucé because Folcoche survives and returns to Beautiful-Angerie. Anxious to restore its drastic rules, she discovers with horror that she has work: the children grew from now on, their father and the abbot oppose shearings hair, with the drudgeries of gardening and others brimades of formerly.

Folcoche then sets up a new plan: it authorizes her husband to take along Jean and Ferdinand in friends for a few weeks and remains alone with the castle with Marcel. This last, less persecuted than his/her brothers, reveals with his mother a hiding-place in the rooms of his/her brothers where they hide food. As of the return of Jacques and his sons, Folcoche, which engaged a new tutor meanwhile, requires a sanction: Ferdinand, because it is the elder one, is whipped by the abbot, a man cruel and devoted to Folcoche. This one thus thinks of creating an estrangement between Ferdinand and Jean, which does not succeed. The harassing of Folcoche takes increasingly grotesque turnings: it tears clothing of its sons for then showing them, it inordinately salts their soup, it hustles them in the door frames to reproach them for not leaving him the step…

The tension becomes such as its sons decide to kill her. The first attempt consists in pouring the totality of a drug in glass of Folcoche: it is a failure. It catches only the colic. The second attempt is more daring: whereas the children sail on a small boat, they wait until Folcoche comes to seek them. This one, furious that its sons do not answer its calls, decides to jump in the boat. But Jean gives a blow of oar to the last moment and Folcoche is found in water. But, with the great consternation of its sons, it can swim and regains the edge painfully.

The evening, persuaded well that Jean tried to kill her, it requires that he be whipped in his turn. But this one intends well to be defended and after being itself locked up in its room, it benefits from the night for fuguer in Paris where it finds refuge in his maternal grandparents. But the latter, not very eager to deal with grandson about which they had then never worried, warn the family Rezeau and Jean is brought back to Beautiful-Angerie by his/her father, with for only victory the made promise that there will be no sanction.

But Folcoche, ulcerated this escapade plays its last chart thus hoping to send it in reformatory: it hiding place a large amount of money in the room of Jean and thus hopes to make it show vol. But it does not see only this one the épie. Before even as it does not give alarm for this flight, Jean brings back the bundle of tickets to him, and for the first time, he is not any more afraid of it! Threatened by his son to reveal this business with all the family members, it requires to leave the house to become internal with the college. Driven back, Folcoche can only accept: Jean finally gained, it strangled the viper.

An autobiographical novel?

As of the exit of the novel, Herve Bazin declares it autobiographical; however, when the two other novels leave ( the death of the small horse and the cry of the owl ) forming the trilogy the Rezeau family, it moderates its remarks by recalling that it was only about one novel. What is it exactly?

  • the places

Bazin locates the novel at Solédot, village close to Segré in Anjou. In fact, it passed its childhood to Marans, also close to Segré. When at the house of family which it calls the " Beautiful-Angerie" , name derived from " the boulangerie" , it acts in reality of the " Pâtis" , which by comparison makes think of the " patisserie". The description of Beautiful-Angerie in the novel is completely similar to that of the Rough grazing on the site " Inheritance of France"

  • family context

Bazin introduces the Rezeau family like downward of a Claude Rezeau, and a " family; of Tanton". That is also the case as the genealogy testifies some to the Bazin family: Claude Bazin, grandfather of Bazin, born in 1645 married a young lady of Tanton of Gaugrières. The only difference between the novel and reality lies in the fact that Bazin was called actually Jean-Pierre Herve-Bazin; His/her father was Jacques Herve-Bazin, wire of Ferdinand Herve and Marie Bazin. In the novel, perhaps for reasons of simplification, Bazin creates the history of the Rezeau family, whose field is transmitted of wire father. At the Herve-Bazin, in fact, the Rough grazing east was transmitted by his/her grandmother. The academician Rene Rezeau of the novel which is a brother of the paternal grandfather of Jean, is in reality the academician Rene Bazin, brother of the paternal grandmother.

Between the novel and the true family of Herve Bazin, the first names and nouns of the characters are often hardly modified.

For example, the Rezeau family is made up of Jacques Rezeau (doctor in right) and Paule Pluvignec, and their children Ferdinand, Jean and Marcel. The Herve-Bazin family is composed, it, of Jacques Herve-Bazin (also doctor in right) and Paule Guilloteaux, and their children, Ferdinand, Jean-Pierre and Pierre.

It should be noted that in the edition " I have Lu " , Herve Bazin makes a lapse taken again by the editor by writing " Pierre" to indicate " Marcel" in the final chapter of Viper to the fist .

The nouns and first names of the uncles and aunts de Hervé Bazin also that were modified very little, such as for example, Michel Herve-Bazin, protonotaire apostolic, which appears with the same function clerical in the novel, with for identity Michel Rezeau.

Many testimonys of the writer, as well as her girl, Catherine, it also writer reaffirms the cruelty of Folcoche, thus confirming the autobiographical character of the novel.

Cinema

It was the object two film adaptations which preserved the name of Vipère of it at the fist

Continuation

This novel, written in a French exemplary, is studied by the schoolboys French and remains a reference on difficult childhood. It is followed of the Death of the small horse , which reports the passage at the adulthood of the hero and his transformation by the love and the paternity, then Cri of the owl , which sees, twenty years after, the arrival of Folcoche in the recomposed family of Jean and the disorders which cause its late and awkward affection for his/her daughter-in-law.

Random links:Senato della Repubblica | Dravidogecko | Cephalin time activated | Cercartetus concinnus | Bayeux (Paraíba) | Waitsburg,_Washington