French Stories Characters & Character Analysis

French Stories Characters

The Prodigal Sonappears in The Return of the Prodigal Son

The prodigal son is a character Andre Gide borrows from Christ's parable in the Gospel of Luke. According to the parable, the son of a very wealthy man runs away from home hoping to find pleasures in foreign lands. He winds up poor and miserable and returns to his father, who mercifully and joyfully accepts him. The Catholic interpretation of this suggests that the return to the father's house indicates a return the Catholic Church and, therefore, stresses the importance of being Catholic. This is the interpretation that Gide has in mind in this story.

After narrating the story up to the point where Christ's parable ends, Gide invents the rest. The prodigal son explains that he does not altogether regret leaving. Though the pleasures outside of his father's house were more fleeting and he had to endure quite a bit of hardship, it...
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