Author | George Sand |
---|---|
Country | France |
Language | French |
Genre | Romantic |
Publication date | April 1832 |
Pages | 344 |
ISBN | 2-07-037604-4 |
Indiana is a novel about love and marriage written by Amantine Aurore Dupin; it was the first work she published under her pseudonym George Sand. Published in April 1832, the novel blends the conventions of romanticism, realism and idealism. As the novel is set partly in France and partly in the French colony of Réunion, Sand had to base her descriptions of the colony, where she had never been, on the travel writing of her friend Jules Néraud.
Indiana is the story's heroine, a young noblewoman descended from French colonial settlers from Île Bourbon (now Réunion) and currently living in France. Indiana is married to an older ex-army officer named Colonel Delmare and suffers from a variety of unknown illnesses, presumably due to the lack of passion in her life. Indiana does not love Delmare and searches for someone who will love her passionately. She overlooks her cousin Ralph, who lives with her and the colonel. As it turns out, Ralph is in love with Indiana.
When their young, handsome and well-spoken neighbor, Raymon de Ramière, declares his interest to Indiana, she falls in love with him. Raymon has already seduced Indiana's maid, Noun, who is pregnant with his child. When Noun finds out what is going on, she drowns herself.
Indiana's husband decides that they will move to Île Bourbon. Indiana escapes the house to faithfully present herself in Raymon's apartments in the middle of the night, expecting him to accept her as his mistress in spite of society's inevitable condemnation. He at first attempts to seduce her but, on failing, rejects her once and for all. He cannot bear the thought that her will is stronger than his and writes her a letter intended to make her fall in love with him again, even though he has no intention of requiting this love.
Indiana has moved to the Island with the Colonel by the time she reads the letter. She resists the letter but finally returns to France on a perilous sea journey. When she arrives in Paris, the French Revolution of 1830 is taking place. In the meantime, Raymon has made an advantageous marriage and bought Indiana's house, where he and his wife live.
The stoic and remote Sir Ralph, whom Indiana has always seen as an "égoiste", suddenly comes to rescue her and tell her that Colonel Delmare has died from a fever. Indiana and Ralph decide to take their own lives together by jumping into a waterfall on the Île Bourbon. But on the way home, they fall in love. Just before the suicide, they declare their love for one another and pledge that they will be married in Heaven. At the end of the novel comes a conclusion, a young adventurer's account of finding a man and woman, Ralph and Indiana, living on an isolated farm on the Island.
The novel deals with many typical nineteenth-century novelistic themes. These include adultery, social constraint, and unfulfilled longing for romantic love. The novel is an exploration of nineteenth-century female desire complicated by class constraints and by social codes about infidelity. In another sense, the novel critiques the laws around women's equality in France. Indiana cannot leave her husband, Colonel Delmare, because she lacks the protection of the law: under the Napoleonic Code, women could not obtain property, claim ownership of their children, or divorce. Finally, the novel touches on the subordination of the colonies to the French Empire.
In 2023, the Centre for Comparative Literature, University of Toronto staged a theatre adaptation of the novel in English at Alliance Française. [2]
That same year, Claire Bouilhac and Catel Muller adapted Indiana into a graphic novel published by Europe Comics. [3]
Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin de Francueil, best known by her pen name George Sand, was a French novelist, memoirist and journalist. One of the most popular writers in Europe in her lifetime, being more renowned than either Victor Hugo or Honoré de Balzac in England in the 1830s and 1840s, Sand is recognised as one of the most notable writers of the European Romantic era. She wrote more than 50 volumes of various works to her credit, including tales, plays and political texts, alongside her 70 novels.
Dangerous Liaisons is a 1988 American period romantic drama film directed by Stephen Frears from a screenplay by Christopher Hampton, based on his 1985 play Les liaisons dangereuses, itself adapted from the 1782 French novel of the same name by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. It stars Glenn Close, John Malkovich, Michelle Pfeiffer, Uma Thurman, Swoosie Kurtz, Mildred Natwick, Peter Capaldi and Keanu Reeves.
Françoise d'Aubigné, known first as Madame Scarron and subsequently as Madame de Maintenon, was a French noblewoman and the second wife of Louis XIV of France from 1683 until his death in 1715. Although she was never considered queen of France, as the marriage was carried out in secret, Madame de Maintenon had considerable political influence as one of the King's closest advisers and the governess of the royal children.
Françoise-Athénaïs de Rochechouart de Mortemart, Marquise of Montespan, commonly known as Madame de Montespan, was a French noblewoman and the most celebrated royal mistress of King Louis XIV. During their romantic relationship, which lasted from the late 1660s to the late 1670s, she was sometimes referred to as the "true Queen of France" due to the pervasiveness of her influence at court.
The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later is a novel by Alexandre Dumas. It is the third and last of The d'Artagnan Romances, following The Three Musketeers and Twenty Years After. It appeared first in serial form between 1847 and 1850.
Françoise Louise de La Baume Le Blanc, Duchess of La Vallière andVaujours was a French noblewoman and the first mistress of Louis XIV of France from 1661 to 1667.
Les Liaisons dangereuses is a French epistolary novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, first published in four volumes by Durand Neveu from March 23, 1782.
Le Rouge et le Noir is a historical psychological novel in two volumes by Stendhal, published in 1830. It chronicles the attempts of a provincial young man to rise socially beyond his modest upbringing through a combination of talent, hard work, deception, and hypocrisy. He ultimately allows his passions to betray him.
Maria Karolina Zofia Felicja Leszczyńska, also known as Marie Leczinska, was Queen of France as the wife of King Louis XV from their marriage on 4 September 1725 until her death in 1768. The daughter of Stanislaus I Leszczyński, the deposed King of Poland, and Catherine Opalińska, her 42-years and 9 months service was the longest of any queen in French history. A devout Catholic throughout her life, Marie was popular among the French people for her numerous charitable works and introduced many Polish customs to the royal court at Versailles. She was the grandmother of the French kings Louis XVI, Louis XVIII and Charles X.
Anne Louise Bénédicte de Bourbon was the daughter of Henri Jules de Bourbon, Prince of Condé, and Anne Henriette of Bavaria. As a member of the reigning House of Bourbon, she was a princesse du sang. Forced to marry the Duke of Maine, legitimised son of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan, she revelled in politics and the arts, and held a popular salon at the Hôtel du Maine as well as at the Château de Sceaux.
Marie Adélaïde of Savoy was the wife of Louis, Dauphin of France, Duke of Burgundy. She was the eldest daughter of Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy, and of Anne Marie d'Orléans. Her betrothal to the Duke of Burgundy in June 1696 was part of the Treaty of Turin, signed on 29 August 1696. She was the mother of the future King Louis XV of France. Styled as Duchess of Burgundy after her marriage, she became Dauphine of France upon the death of her father-in-law, Le Grand Dauphin, in 1711. She died of measles in 1712, followed by her husband a week later.
Jeanne Agnès Berthelot de Pléneuf, marquise de Prie, was a French noblewoman who for a brief period exercised extraordinary control of the French court during the reign of King Louis XV.
La Princesse de Clèves is a French novel which was published anonymously in March 1678. It was regarded by many as the beginning of the modern tradition of the psychological novel and a classic work. Its author is generally held to be Madame de La Fayette.
World Without End is a best-selling 2007 historical fiction novel by Welsh author Ken Follett. It is the second book in the Kingsbridge Series, and is the sequel to 1989's The Pillars of the Earth.
Marie Anne de Bourbon, Légitimée de France, born Marie Anne de La Blaume Le Blanc, by her marriage Princess of Conti then Princess Dowager of Conti, suo jureDuchess of La Vallière and of Vaujours was a French noblewoman as the eldest legitimised daughter of Louis XIV, King of France, born from his mistress Louise de La Vallière, and the king's favourite daughter. She married Louis Armand I, Prince of Conti, in 1680 and was widowed in 1685. She never married again and had no issue. Upon her mother's death, she became the suo jure Duchess of La Vallière and of Vaujours.
Françoise Marie de Bourbon was the youngest illegitimate daughter of King Louis XIV of France and his maîtresse-en-titre, Françoise-Athénaïs de Rochechouart, Marquise de Montespan. At the age of 14, she married her first cousin Philippe d'Orléans, the future regent of France during the minority of Louis XV. Through two of her eight children, she became the ancestress of several of Europe's Roman Catholic monarchs of the 19th and 20th centuries—notably those of Belgium, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and France.
Louise Élisabeth de Bourbon was a daughter of Louis III de Bourbon, Prince of Condé, and his wife, Louise Françoise de Bourbon, légitimée de France, a legitimised daughter of King Louis XIV of France and his famous mistress, Madame de Montespan.
Mémoires de deux jeunes mariées is an epistolary novel by the French writer Honoré de Balzac. It was serialized in the French newspaper La Presse in 1841 and published by Furne in 1842 as the first work in the second volume of Balzac's La Comédie humaine. It was dedicated to the French novelist George Sand. The 1902 English translation of the novel included a preface by Henry James.
Catel Muller, who publishes under the name Catel, is a French comic book artist and illustrator.
Claire Bouilhac is a French bande dessinée illustrator, scriptwriter, and colorist, working in particular for Spirou and Fluide Glacial. She mainly draws the series Maude Mutante, Francis Blaireau Farceur, and Melody Bondage. She is a 2022 laureate of the Prix Schlingo.