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Océane Jones

Professor Smallwood

Process Writing and Writing Process

04 September 2023

Reading Response: Annie Ernaux’s Shame

In Shame by Annie Ernaux and translated into English from French by Tanya Leslie, Ernaux

explores the memory of a Sunday in June in her 12th year of life when her dad almost killed her

mom. The novel continuously links all the stories of Ernaux’s 12th year with this exploration of

memory through the photograph. Ernaux’s profound skill of being able to relate stories of her

upbringing all woven together with the photograph of her and her father in Biarritz is insanely

impressive. Ernaux uses parentheses to show her inner thoughts in conjunction with the overall

thesis of examining photographs and explores how societal values and norms, such as family

values, environment, religion, and capitalism, are individualized. Ernaux is talented in

beautifully moving the narrative around without seeming to lose the reader along the way. She

also uses the structured format of lists, numbered or otherwise, to show the structured and

confined quality of Ernaux’s life in 1950’s small-town France. This novel feels so raw and honest

(such as Ernaux feeling inferior for being a late bloomer, causing her to do everything she could

to look older as mentioned on page 80) depiction of femininity and 1950’s French catholic

upbringing. Ernaux shows how the normalization of perfection through these artificial constructs

promoted isolation and facades, creating an opinion of mental illness as sinful and a failure at

maintaining the virtue of one’s health, as well as a lack of authenticity. I loved this book :)