Book Analysis: Rene

The French Revolution of 1789 brought an upset of the social order in France: monarchy and religion, the two institutions that had retained order and promoted the growth of a great society for decades, were rejected. It is not difficult to see Chateaubriand’s René as an allegory describing post-Revolutionary France and the predicaments that the Revolution brought to French citizens. Chateaubriand’s short interlude draws a parallel between René and France- both have been cut off from previous social order, which provokes a feeling of nostalgia. In René’s world, like in the new France, there is no connection to the former religious way of life or the traditional government. Even the title of Chateaubriand’s work can be seen as a metaphor for a need for return to the past due to the fact that René means reborn or born again in French. The title provokes contemplation for the renewal of pre-Revolutionary society. Furthermore, Chateaubriand focuses on lack of memory to point to the necessity for the rebirth and restoration of pre-Revolutionary French society. The first time there is a lack of memory in René, it occurs on an individual basis. On the very evening of the passing of René’s father the “indifferent passer-by trod over his grave”; “aside from his daughter and son, it was already as though he had never existed” (89). René’s father, a ruin of the past himself, stands as a symbol for pre-Revolutionary society. Just as the ideals and morals of pre-Revolutionary France -which had influenced René since birth- had died quickly at the start of the Revolution, René’s father, the “creator” of his “thought”, had passed away in his arms from a “disease which wrought him to his grave in a short time” (88). Even though he had just died that evening, René’s father is barely commemorated or remembered. Chateaubriand inspires horror within readers for how quickly things can be forgotten. René’s father is just as insignificant to current society as a later referenced