SOURCE: Day, Loraine. “Revisioning the ‘Matricidal’ Gaze: The Dynamics of the Mother-Daughter Relationship and Creative Expression in Annie Ernaux's ‘Je ne suis pas sortie de ma nuit’ and La honte.” Dalhousie French Studies 51 (summer 2000): 150-73.

In the following essay, Day explores the parallels between “Je ne suis pas sortie de ma nuit” and La honte, focusing on the role of the mother-daughter relationship in Ernaux's work.

The work of Annie Ernaux explores a verifiable personal history, embedded in a specific social and historical context, using the process of writing itself as the primary research tool. Focusing on lived experience, her creative project incorporates a sustained reflection on the function and meaning of writing. It is therefore to be expected that her texts will lay bare contradictions or difficulties relating to her sense of direction as a human being and as a writer, signalling the necessity for further work...