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Summary
Chapters 1-5
Chapter 1
In 1995, an unnamed older woman reflects upon aging, memory, and the past. Her husband passed away a few months earlier, and she has been diagnosed with a terminal illness. She has been encouraged by her son to leave her large home on the coast of Oregon, where she has lived for almost fifty years, and move into a nursing home. Though she is uninterested in keeping most of her possessions, she goes into the attic to find an old steamer trunk that is of great importance to her. In the trunk, she sees baby goods, but also older mementos, including an old French identity card with a photo of a woman named “Juliette Gervaise.” Her son arrives and asks her about the identity of the woman in the photo. Instead of answering him, she allows her thoughts to wander to the past.
Chapter 2
In 1939, Vianne Mauriac enjoys a peaceful summer day with her daughter, Sophie, and her husband, Antoine, in their home in Carriveau, in the Loire Valley of France. Together, they prepare for a picnic. Despite her current happiness, Vianne has had a life marked by difficulties. Following the death of her mother when she is ten years old, Vianne and her younger sister, Isabelle, are largely abandoned by their father, Julien, who leaves them in the care of an unkind Madame in Le Jardin, a large house owned by the family. As a shy and unhappy adolescent, she falls in love with Antoine, who boosts her spirits and raises her confidence. She marries Antoine at sixteen years old and, after several miscarriages, she gives birth to Sophie. The three live together in contentment in Le Jardin. However, Antoine is distracted during their pleasant picnic, and after dinner, he tells Vianne that he has been conscripted into the French army in preparation for war with Germany.
Chapter 3
Vianne reflects upon the changes that the war will bring, noting that her father was profoundly changed by his experiences fighting in WWI. That night, Sophie and Antoine make love passionately. The next morning, Vianne takes Sophie to visit her closest friend, Rachel, who has a daughter Sophie’s age, named Sarah, and a newborn son, Ariel, nicknamed “Ari.” The two women became friends as children and now work together as teachers in the local school. Rachel shares in Sophie’s anxieties regarding the war, as her own husband, Marc, has also been conscripted. Later, Vianne and Sophie accompany Antoine to the army camp and say their farewells.
Chapter 4
In June of the following year, Isabelle attends school in a lavish medieval villa in the countryside. She has been expelled from various schools in the past and now, at age 19, she is again dismissed by the school’s headmistress Madame Dufour, who sends a telegram to her father to pick her up that night. As the nation prepares for war, Isabelle arrives in Paris where she meets Julien, her father, who reluctantly allows her to stay with him in the city.
A week later, Isabelle enjoys a picnic in a park with a handsome university student named Christophe as Paris prepares for the possibility of war. She arrives at her father’s bookstore when panicked crowds race through the street, bearing news that the Germans are advancing on Paris. Isabelle and Julien make it back to his apartment before planes fly overhead and bombs fall elsewhere in the city.
Chapter 5
Against her protests, Julien insists upon sending Isabelle to the countryside after the fall of Paris to the Germans. He arranges for her to join the Humbert family as they drive towards Tours, where she can proceed to Le Jardin. The Humberts drive alongside a large crowd of evacuees, primarily consisting of women. Due to the large number of people leaving Paris, they are unable to purchase gas and must abandon the car. Losing the Humberts in the dizzying crowd, Isabelle proceeds on her own, hoping to walk to her destination. In the woods, she meets a young man named Gaëtan Dubois, who shares his food with her despite his conspicuous poverty. He tells her that he was released from prison alongside others to join the army but has decided to visit his mother and sister first. The two decide to check in on their respective families before joining the war effort together.
Analysis
Chapter 1 is set in Oregon in the present day, far from the principal setting of the novel. An unnamed older woman reflects upon a number of themes that will become important later in the story, such as grief, the passing of time, and painful memories. The trunk that she keeps in her attic is clearly of great emotional importance to her, as she refuses to leave it behind as she vacates her home of forty years. However, there is also a sense of mystery surrounding the trunk, as it contains an ID card for a woman named “Juliette Gervaise,” a name that her son does not recognize. The woman feels a sense of shock upon hearing her son say the name, suggesting that there is a good deal that her family does not know about her. Though she has tried to move on from the past, even keeping secrets from her children, her own memories connect her to her earlier life and to those whom she has lost. Terminally ill and approaching the end of her life, she finally allows herself to delve into her own memories. Ultimately, she concludes that she would rather be “known” than “admired,” implying that she wants others to know the truth of her life even if the details are not all flattering.
Read more about the ID card as a symbol in The Nightingale.
At this early point in the novel, it is unclear how the older woman relates to the principal narrative set in France before and during WWII. In that narrative, the threat of war with Germany casts long shadows over an otherwise pleasant summer’s day. Though Vianne’s husband, Antoine, joins his family for an idyllic picnic in the French countryside, his occasional silence suggests that he is preoccupied with the topic of war. At first, Vianne attempts to keep her mind on more pleasant topics, but Antoine’s conscription into the French military forces her to accept the difficult reality of their situation. Though she has never seen war directly, war has nevertheless shaped Vianne’s early life, as her father was profoundly altered by his experiences in WWI, which left him unable to respond to or return his daughters’ love. The impact of war, both on society and upon the individual, serves as a major theme in The Nightingale.
Read more about the lingering effects of war and trauma as a theme in The Nightingale.
While Vianne fears for her family’s safety, her younger sister, Isabelle, lives a very different life, first rebelling against the strict rules and restrictions of her boarding school and later enjoying the pleasures of Paris. These two sisters have very different personalities. Where Vianne is soft-spoken and seeks the comforts of family-life in the countryside, Isabelle is fiery and bold. Her disagreement with the headmistress of her school reflects her impatience with social conventions, particularly those conventions which limit female behavior. While the school molds girls into demure and polite young women who follow rules obediently, Isabelle has an independent spirit that bristles against tradition. She greatly admires women who, through bravery and intelligence, have made a mark on history, hoping to someday be a “war hero.” However, at this point in the story she is still very naive, with only a superficial understanding of the difficulties of war.
