For four months I have been slowly gnawing away at my rope till it has finally frayed and parted. All that was needed was simply that the gaoler should carelessly leave the prisoner unguarded. Once his back was turned she became aware both of the horror of the prison and of light shining through the chinks of the door. — Claudine and Annie, Colette
I promised myself that I would finish Colette’s The Complete Claudine before the semester ended and now I have.
The Complete Claudine is a four novel(la) arc, introducing the reader to the precocious Claudine when she is still a schoolgirl and chronicling her experiences through young adulthood and marriage. Colette’s writing almost reminds me of Anais Nin’s without the overt eroticism. The series was enjoyable to read and very very French, but it was Claudine and Annie, the last piece in the collection that really captured my interest.
Claudine and Annie should simply be called Annie, as this is really Annie’s story, her awakening after four years in a loveless marriage that has left her emotionally stifled and fettered by insecurities. The vibrant, passionate Claudine presents a stark contrast to the timid and reserved Annie, a distinction that almost made me want to read them as doubles, Annie representing the Claudine that could have been if she had not taken action and wallowed in the sorrow that accompanied her sojourn in Paris after her marriage.
However, despite the listlessness that afflicts Annie as she records the events following her husband’s departure to Argentina, Annie’s story is more than the story of a married woman’s discontent. Like Edna Pontellier in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, Annie comes to acknowledge the disatisfaction that marks her relationship with her husband and her role as wife. Annie finds comes into being and chances an escape that may or may provide her with the happiness she seeks, but will free her, an end that I find infinitely more satisfying than Edna’s.
