Father

The focus on this work is on Ernaux, the narrator, as she examines her past. However, it is her father who has created the one event that stirs her memories. In a fit of anger, her father threatened to kill her mother. It was the kind of anger that Ernaux witnessed only once, but once was enough. Her father's attempted (or threatened) murder of her mother went against the major morals of the church, of her society, of her family. No one outside the family would ever know about it (as far as Ernaux knows), and no one inside the family would ever talk about it. Because of her father's assault, Ernaux felt isolated.

Ernaux's father was a hardworking man who was gentle with his daughter. One of the few photographs that Ernaux has saved, and from which she tries to remember her childhood, is of herself with...