[Pocket Edition] World Literature Classics Library - The Unconquerable Woman

Author: (French) André Gide
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-11-01
Features: This autobiographically charged novel by Nobel Prize-winning French writer André Gide tells the story of a man who defies traditional customs and seeks to follow his personal inclinations. The protagonist, Michel, travels to North Africa with his wife, Marceline. There, he contracts tuberculosis. While caring for him, Marceline discovers that he has no love for her and is homosexual. Upon returning to France, Michel meets the morally transcendent Ménalque, who advises him to forget the past and indulge in sensuality. Soon after, Marceline falls ill and dies, and completely free, Michel decides to give in to his desires. The book promotes the decadentism that Gide advocated, portraying human problems and dilemmas with an unwavering love for truth and keen psychological insight. This collection includes three of Gide's major novels: The Vatican Cellars, The Gates of Paradise, and The Counterfeiters. In his works, Gide explores the indeterminacy of life's essence, how to seek life's value and way of living amidst a world devoid of humanity, and the conflicts between social norms and the desire for freedom, among other new social issues. He critiques the rigid moral views of Western society at the time, which were blinded by traditional taboos and dogmas. The work breaks the traditional novelistic conventions of the 19th century, featuring a clear and pure style, meticulous psychological portrayals, and a perfect expression of modern complex emotions in the form of French classical literature. It redefines the new for traditional novelistic models.