Hart, with degrees in English literature and creative writing, focuses her published works on literary themes. In this essay, Hart concentrates on the theme of alienation that weaves its way through Ernaux's memoir, looking for clues to define its cause.

In the memoir Shame, Annie Ernaux examines what she remembers of her childhood, the social customs of her village, and her overall feelings of shame. Over and over again in her recollections, whether she writes of her family's social status and the customs of her immediate and extended family or of the village in which she lives, she demonstrates her sense of not fitting in. Her description of the scene of her father threatening her mother with a scythe expresses another form of alienation because, she concluded, that this event would forever mark her family as being different from every other family in her small town. As...