The Dark Journey: Analysis of Setting
"The Dark Journey: Analysis of Setting" explores the intricate and often somber environments of two fictional French towns, Chanteilles and Lorges, which serve as the backdrop for a narrative filled with tension and personal struggles. These towns, accessible by train from Paris, are bordered by two rivers, the Sommeillante and the Preste, symbolizing contrasting states of being—one sleepy and the other swift. The story centers on Paul Guéret, who relocates to Chanteilles with his wife, Marie, in hopes of escaping their discontent in Paris, only to find his marriage loveless and his life stagnant as he tutors a wealthy family's son.
Key locations, such as the Restaurant Londe, managed by the controlling Madame Georges Londe, highlight the dynamics of power and manipulation in social interactions. Madame Londe's establishment becomes a focal point for gossip and intrigue, tying characters together through secrets and debts. Another significant location is the Villa Mon Idée, the home of the Grosgeorge family, where Guéret's interactions with Eva Grosgeorge reveal underlying marital tensions and escalating conflicts. These settings not only contribute to the plot but also reflect broader themes of entrapment and the struggle for identity within oppressive social structures. Through its detailed depiction of these places, the narrative invites readers to consider how environment shapes human behavior and relationships.
The Dark Journey: Analysis of Setting
First published:Leviathan, 1929 (English translation, 1929)
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Psychological realism
Time of work: Early twentieth century
Asterisk denotes entries on real places.
Places Discussed
Chanteilles
Chanteilles (shahn-TAY) and Lorges (lorzh). Neighboring French provincial towns within relatively easy access to Paris by train. The towns are framed on both sides by rivers, portentously named the Sommeillante (sleepy) and the Preste (quick). Much of the novel’s action takes place on or near bridges that cross the rivers, where Paul Guéret waits for the young laundress Angèle. Guéret has moved to Chanteilles with his wife, Marie, in a futile search for a better life than the one they left behind in Paris. His marriage remains loveless, and the only job that he has found is that of tutor to the slow-witted only son of the wealthy Grosgeorge family.
Restaurant Londe
Restaurant Londe (lohnd). Restaurant that is an important Lorges landmark, owned and managed by the imperious Madame Georges Londe, who maintains and relishes a jealous hold on her exclusively male clientele. Guéret stumbles into the restaurant more or less by accident, instantly arousing the insatiable curiosity of the proprietress, who has never seen him before. Determined to snare Guéret in the same net that holds her other customers, Madame Londe refuses to accept payment for his meal, insisting instead that he open an account by signing his name. Thus armed, Madame Londe also ensures that the newcomer will return because he is now in her debt.
From an elevated perch, Madame Londe presides over her establishment with the demeanor of a stern and scolding teacher, occasionally revealing secret knowledge of a customer’s recent purchases, business dealings, or family life. The main source of her information is young Angèle, a nonpaying boarder, who is possibly her niece, whom she regularly sends out on assignations with customers for the sole purpose of collecting gossip to keep them under her control. She does not know, or care, what Angèle has to do to gather the information that she covets; that, Madame Londe self-righteously assures herself, is none of her business.
Villa Mon Idée
Villa Mon Idée (vee-YAH moh-neh-dee). Large, pretentious home of the Grosgeorge family, where Guéret regularly meets with his pupil, the couple’s only child. Eva Grosgeorge, resentful of her older husband and harboring bitterness that is never fully explained, turns her resentment toward Guéret when her son André seemingly fails to respond to Guéret’s teaching. Her husband, in turn, shares his own marital and sexual problems with Guéret, inadvertently revealing himself to be one of Angèle’s “regulars” and precipitating the crisis that will result in Guéret’s beating of Angèle and, later, his murder of an elderly homeless man who stumbles upon his hiding place.
After several weeks at large, Guéret will return to the Chanteilles area, only to be spotted by Angèle and, soon thereafter, by the crafty Eva Grosgeorge, who first offers him shelter at Mon Idée, then hatches a scheme to turn him over to the police while he remains a virtual prisoner in Madame Grosgeorge’s upstairs sitting room. The name Villa Mon Idée literally means “my idea.”
*Paris
*Paris. Capital of France, where Guéret and his wife formerly lived and worked. Marie Guéret, still employed as a seamstress by a Paris department store, still makes weekly trips to the capital in order to deliver her finished orders. Guéret himself may well have spent some of his time there while hiding out from the authorities and changing his appearance by growing a beard.
Bibliography
Burne, Glenn S. Julian Green. New York: Twayne, 1972. Provides a comprehensive overview of the first forty-five years of Green’s career, culminating in his induction into the Académie Française in 1971. Provides a good interpretation of The Dark Journey.
Dunaway, John M. The Metamorphosis of the Self: The Mystic, the Sensualist, and the Artist in the Works of Julien Green. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1978. Revised from a doctoral dissertation, Dunaway’s study traces the sources and evolution of Green’s narrative art. It deals only in passing with The Dark Journey, relating it to the prevalence of violence in Green’s early fiction.
Peyre, Henri. French Novelists of Today. New York: Oxford University Press, 1967. Provides a good overview of Green’s career, presenting him as standing outside both the French and the American traditions from which his work derives. Includes useful readings of Green’s early and midcareer fiction.
Stokes, Samuel. Julian Green and the Thorn of Puritanism. New York: King’s Crown Press, 1955. Stokes’s volume, like Dunaway’s, is a revised doctoral dissertation and the first full-length study of Green in English. It is still useful for the analysis of Green’s religious evolution as reflected in his novels.