[Pocket Edition] World Literature Classics Library - The Transgressor

Author: None
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-09-01
Features: This novel, written by Nobel Prize-winning French author André Gide, is deeply autobiographical and 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, Madeleine, where he contracts tuberculosis. While Madeleine cares for him, she discovers that he has no love for her and is homosexual. Upon returning to France, Michel meets the morally ambiguous Menalque, who advises him to forget the past and indulge in sensual pleasures. Soon after, Madeleine falls ill and dies, and completely free, Michel decides to give in to his desires. The novel promotes the decadentism that Gide advocated, portraying human problems and dilemmas with an unwavering love for truth and keen psychological insight. This book is a collection of three of Gide's major novels: The Vatican Cellars, The Gates of Paradise, and The Immoralist. In his works, Gide explores the indeterminacy of life, the search for value and lifestyle in a dehumanizing world, and the conflict 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 novel breaks the traditional 19th-century novelistic conventions, with its clear and pure style, meticulous psychological portrayal, and perfect form of French classical literature, expressing the complex emotions of modern people and redefining new paradigms for traditional novels.