Gide as Satirist
SPODHEIM, RENEE
Gide as Satirist Marshlands and Prometheus Misbound. By Andre Gide. New Directions. 192 pp. $3.00. Reviewed by Renee Spodheim Though already a little dated in France, Andre Gide is still...
...few writers can boast of entirely escaping his impact...
...On second thought, however, following one's own bent presents certain problems...
...In Gide's philosophy, a gratuitous act, i.e., one that has no apparent reason, is man's greatest achievement, that which makes him different from all other animals...
...This type of act was to be built up to a climax in Les Caves du Vatican...
...All those who appreciate Gide's handicraft will enjoy these serious though witty lines, which have a spontaneity and charm that many of his later writings lack...
...this Gide attempts to do in Marshlands, a work written 59 years ago which satirizes the monotony and stagnation of our lives, our inertia and, more dangerous yet, our resignation...
...They walk in and out of each other's apartments like puppets with broken strings...
...Prometheus Misbound carries the satire to the point where some steps are taken...
...Reduced to its simplest form, Gide's philosophy consists in the belief that man should follow his bent, provided it leads upward...
...Through their purposeless agitation the author caricatures all types of illusory actions...
...Nothing easier, it would seem...
...And so the pathetic beauty of self-sacrifice feeding an eagle on one's own blood would be justified only by religious faith...
...Before man can actually follow his bent, he must be shaken into an awareness of his state...
...We are self-contentedly sinking a little more every day in our own private swamps...
...In the end, Prometheus kills his eagle, apparently in an effort to show that ideals as an aim in themselves are valueless, especially when they hurt other people...
...Zeus puts 500 francs in an envelope, asks a passerby to write an address on it, and then, without provocation, slaps the passerby and mails the letter...
...In Prometheus, God is represented by Zeus, the first to perform a gratuitous act in Gide's work...
...A cosmopolitan mind, similar in scope to Goethe, Gide was always open to outside influences ranging from Nietzsche to Oscar Wilde, from Freud to Shakespeare, and from Dostoyevsky to Chopin...
...We are all well entrenched in our habits, chained down by conformity to our family, to traditions, to a certain way of life...
...The characters are seen dimly, as if through the muddy waters of the marshes...
...The main character of this story, in which mythological figures mix with ordinary people, has an eagle, symbolizing an ideal, which feeds on its master's body...
...Reviewed by Renee Spodheim Though already a little dated in France, Andre Gide is still regarded abroad as one of the greatest exponents of contemporary French literature...
...There is no beginning, no climax and no end...
...Nothing actually happens in Marshlands...
...Whatever one's personal reactions to him, it cannot be denied that he was the spiritual leader of two generations...
Vol. 37 • May 1954 • No. 20
