The Flanders Road: Analysis of Major Characters
"The Flanders Road: Analysis of Major Characters" delves into the intricate dynamics among a group of characters set against the backdrop of war. At the center is Georges, a young cavalry soldier and prisoner of war, who grapples with his obsession over the circumstances surrounding the death of Charles de Reixach, his commanding officer and distant cousin. Charles is portrayed as a dignified yet enigmatic figure, whose tragic end raises questions about honor and infidelity, particularly in relation to his beautiful but scandalous wife, Corinne. Corinne, characterized by her youthful beauty and disregard for tradition, becomes a focal point of Georges's intrigue, further complicated by her affair with the stableman, Iglésia, who embodies loyalty yet remains emotionally distant.
Supporting characters like Blum, Georges’s comrade, provide practical wisdom and critique Georges's fixation on the past. Meanwhile, Georges's parents, Pierre and Sabine, reflect contrasting views on intellect and social aspirations, shaping Georges's disdain for ineffectuality in their bourgeois lifestyle. The legacy of an ancestor, Reixach, adds a historical dimension to the narrative, intertwining familial scandal with the present. Through these characters, the story examines themes of obsession, identity, and the impact of personal and familial histories amid the chaos of war.
The Flanders Road: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Claude Simon
First published: La Route des Flandres, 1960 (English translation, 1961)
Genre: Novel
Locale: Northeastern France, Nazi Germany, and Paris
Plot: Love
Time: 1940–1945
Georges (zhohrzh), the narrator, a young cavalry soldier and prisoner of war. He is obsessed with Corinne de Reixach as a means of determining whether her husband's death was an accident of war or a suicide. The product of a solid classical education but little real-life experience, Georges possesses a cultivated contempt for authority and scorns his parents' intellectual and aristocratic pretensions. With the French army en route and in an attempt to reestablish a sense of order, Georges becomes obsessed with solving the mystery of de Reixach's death.
Charles de Reixach (shahrl deh ri-SHAHK), a distant cousin of Georges, the commanding officer of Georges's squadron and the cuckolded husband of Corinne. He is elegant, controlled, distant, meticulous in dress and manner, and cordial to his men. This forty-two-year-old aristocrat presents an impenetrable expressionless face that defies access to his inner thoughts and motivations and makes him an enigma to Georges. De Reixach is killed by a sniper's bullet, a death he may have chosen as a result of his humiliation at his wife's infidelity.
Corinne de Reixach (koh-RIHN), Charles's wife, the object of Georges's obsession, and Iglésia's lover. Twenty years younger than her husband, Corinne is seen as a parvenue with a reputation for promiscuity. Blonde and possessing an ideal, translucent beauty, she is a fascinating and disturbing woman/child whose shameless clothes and actions scandalize the aristocratic class. Corinne's whims continually challenge her husband's traditions and values, as well as his ability to control and satisfy her. After the war, Corinne remarries and has a brief affair with Georges.
Iglésia (ih-GLAY-zee-ah), who in peacetime was employed as a jockey by de Reixach and during the war was de Reixach's orderly in the cavalry squadron. He is incarcerated as a prisoner of war with Georges. Some fifteen years older than the other cavalry soldiers, Iglésia is small of stature, with bow legs, sallow skin, and a mournful, hawkish face. Iglésia displays an unquestioning loyalty toward his employer that does not extend beyond de Reixach's death. Naturally taci-turn and uncommunicative and interested only in discussing horses, Iglésia presents a challenge as a source of information for Georges about both Charles and Corinne.
Blum (blewm), Georges's Jewish comrade in arms and fellow prisoner of war. Blum is slight of build, with large, protruding ears and a narrow girlish face that belies his stubbornness and savvy. The son of an overworked family of clothiers and thus well versed in the requirements of survival, Blum, though the same age as Georges, possesses a much more practical experience of life's hardships and injustices. A partner in Georges's attempts to solve the mystery of de Reixach's demise, he is also critical of Georges's obsession with finding the “truth” of a past event that has little or no bearing on their present situation. Blum dies of tuberculosis in the prison camp.
Pierre, Georges's father. A corpulent intellectual whose own parents were illiterate peasants, Pierre idolizes knowledge and reveres the written word as the ultimate source of human-kind's progress and salvation. He spends his days reading and writing, physically detached from the world and its events. He unwittingly inspires Georges's disdain for the impotence and inefficacy of intellectual pursuits and naïve idealism.
Sabine (sah-BEEN), Georges's mother, a poor relation to the de Reixach family. Horrified at growing old, the red-haired Sabine tries to hide her advancing age behind brightly colored clothes and an ever increasing quantity of jewelry. Although Sabine's marriage to the bourgeois intellectual Pierre excludes her from lofty social circles, she retains her admiration of the prestige of aristocracy. Heir to the family home, documents, and portraits, she is the unofficial family historian. It is she who, through her ceaseless chatter, fills Georges's childhood with family stories and legends.
Reixach, an eighteenth century ancestor of Charles de Reixach (and thus also of Georges) whose portrait hangs in the family gallery. His populist sympathies compel him to drop the aristocratic particle “de” from his name. His political views lead to family and personal embarrassment and prompt his suicide, a scandal that the family tries to hide. Ironically, his portrait is marred by a crack in the paint at the level of his temple, which seems to memorialize the suicide. This portrait feeds Georges's curiosity about de Reixach by proposing an ancestral prototype of suicide.
Wack, a fellow cavalry soldier. An Alsatian peasant, anti-Semitic, simple, and stubborn, with a fool's face, Wack is a know-it-all and is constantly baited by his comrades. Wack is shot off his horse in an ambush that precedes de Reixach's death.