52 pages • 1 hour read
Kristin HarmelThe Paris Daughter
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Mothers, Daughters, and Maternal Responsibility and Identity
Content Warning: This section of the guide deals with themes related to the Nazi occupation of Paris during WWII, child loss, the Holocaust, and war and its traumatic effects.
This theme is key to both the novel’s plot and the depiction of the main characters. The Paris Daughter is set during the Second World War (WWII), a time when the patriarchal structure of Western society saw the majority of women confined to domestic roles as wives and mothers. It is natural then that familial duties would be central to the identities and lives of the novel’s two female protagonists. Particular focus is placed on the relationships between mothers and their children, and the conflicts that arise when love and duty clash. The opening quote of the novel, situated before even the start of Chapter 1, establishes the primacy and omnipresence of the theme: “Motherhood: All love begins and ends there” (1, 6).
Elise LeClair and Juliette Foulon are both defined in large part by their identity as mothers. A preoccupation with the love and sense of duty they feel towards their children is central to both of their perspectives of events. Furthermore, the majority of their decisions and reactions to plot events are dictated or at least influenced by maternal love and duty. Ruth Levy, who acts as a tertiary foil to the two protagonists, is also a mother and is quoted as saying “Being a parent is not about doing what is right for ourselves, is it? […] It’s about sacrificing all we can, big and small, to give our children their best chance at life” (1, 11, 86). Elise agrees with this perspective, which is why she chooses to leave Mathilde with Juliette despite wanting nothing more than to take Mathilde with her. Juliette, however, seems unable to fathom the logic, believing instead that a mother’s duty is to stay with her children no matter what. This different conception of duty, though equally borne of love, is what causes the relationship between Juliette and Elise to sour, as Juliette comes to resent what she perceives as Elise’s abandonment of Mathilde. The novel deals with themes of moral obligation and responsibility generally in relation to WWII and the Holocaust, and it combines these notions with perceptions of maternal duty. The two mothers are juxtaposed to reflect on these roles; their identities, too, shift depending on how they are undertaking these roles, the author at times questioning patriarchal constructions and pressures of these obligations.
The theme of maternal love and duty is also explored through the mothers’ treatment of children who are not their own but who are still under their care. This is one of the main instances where the characters of Elise and Juliette contrast with each other. Elise cares for the Jewish children in hiding when she cannot look after her own daughter and then for George and Suzanne Levy despite her grief for the loss of Mathilde. She is able to treat them with maternal love, while also doing her duty to care for them without trying to supplant or erase their original parents. She encourages the young girl going by Therese to hold onto her own identity and helps the Levy children to hope for their mother’s return. When Ruth does return, Elise is willing to surrender her children back to her despite the grief this causes. They remain family by choice and mutual consent. Juliette, however, is unable to do this. Even before the bombing of the bookshop, she encourages Mathilde to forget Elise and afterwards goes so far as to deny Mathilde’s real identity and force her into the role of “Lucie.” After the time skip between Parts 2 and 3, it is clear that Juliette’s maternal love has soured with resentment and possessiveness, and that, due to her inability to accept the full extent of her loss, she has failed in her duty to do what is best for “Lucie.” The novel continues to juxtapose the two mothers and show how their identities are tied up in their maternal roles and acts. Juliette attempts to retain her identity through “Lucie,” and when she ultimately loses the girl, she dies at the novel’s end. Elise, on the other hand, although she believes she has lost her daughter, continues to maintain her identity and even develops it further through her art following the war, by way of depicting her ostensibly lost daughter. She intuits that her daughter is still alive, however, and continues with her seeking and self-development through her, ultimately finding her and starting the rest of her life with her following the novel’s end.
The Role of Art in Fate and Identity
Identity is a key theme in many WWII novels, particularly those that explore the events of the Holocaust. The genocides perpetrated by the Nazis were a concerted effort to erase millions of people from existence; the retention and exploration of targeted identities is therefore an important facet of WWII literature. In The Paris Daughter, the concept of identity is inextricably linked with art, particularly for the characters of Elise and “Lucie.” Both are artists at the very core of their characterizations, and it is through their artwork that they are able to express themselves and connect with the world around them. Art also functions as a major driver of the plot; many of the events in the novel, particularly those that would be considered real-world coincidences, are precipitated or shaped by the art that these characters create. Harmel therefore uses art to explore the concept of fate, inextricably connecting the concepts of the self and destiny with creation. Creating art is a way of moving forward in this sense, amid the tragedy of the war and Holocaust, and art indeed helps these characters move on from grief and, in the case of “Lucie,” even re-discover their true selves.
The character of Elise is introduced from the very outset as an artist. In the novel’s opening chapter, she attempts to sketch birds, and scenes where she sculpts are described in meticulous, tactile detail. Unlike Juliette, whose identity is entirely wrapped up in her role as a wife and mother, Elise also defines herself as an artist. Consequently, while Juliette is unable to fathom a life without her husband and children to the extent that she must create and defend at all costs the fantasy that the surviving Mathilde is actually “Lucie,” Elise is able to withstand the loss of both Olivier and Mathilde. Art allows Elise to preserve her memories of Mathilde, to provide for herself and the Levy children, and to carve out a new existence for herself as an artist and a survivor. When Bouet steals Elise’s art and her rightful legacy as the artist, he is attempting to erase a vital part of her identity, a deliberate parallel to Juliette’s attempts to erase Elise’s identity as Mathilde’s mother. In this way, these characters’ art attempts to redefine their identity following others’ attempts to destroy that identity. This also parallels the function of the historical novel about the Holocaust; while the Nazis attempted to erase Jewish identity permanently, accounts of the Holocaust resurrect and redefine that identity through art and narrative.
The character of “Lucie” is also defined by her self-identification as an artist. Her decision to pursue art against Juliette’s wishes is a vital part of her struggle to discover her identity, both in terms of reclaiming her original identity and forging a new one as a freshly come-of-age adult. The urge to create art is presented as an inherited legacy of the LeClairs, and art links “Lucie” and Elise in such a way that their reunion is presented as an inevitable product of fate. Both Elise and Lucie decorate their studios with a mural of the night sky and Bois de Boulogne, linking mother and daughter through time and space. Lucie writes alongside her mural the phrase that Elise would repeat to her each night: “Under these stars, fate will guide you home.” This phrase is ultimately vindicated in a final crystallization of the link between art, fate, and identity; the mural provides the backdrop for Elise and Mathilde’s final, seemingly fated, reunion and the final confirmation of Lucie’s true identity. It is the painting of the stars that identifies and defines their identities, and these stars, too, as symbols and painted objects, guide them towards their understanding of themselves as mother and daughter. The two women discover and define themselves, and this leads them forward.
Trauma and Its Impact on Memory
WWII was a period of massive collective trauma, impacting both combatants and civilians the whole world over. Millions upon millions of people died, and millions more were injured, traumatized, and bereaved, and the effects of such monumental suffering left resounding echoes that continue to affect survivors and their descendants to the present day. In The Paris Daughter, Harmel explores the theme of trauma and its impact on memory through its effects on her characters. The protagonists Juliette and Elise are both American expats and orphans, and so despite living in occupied Paris, they do not have strong ties to any community network or wider family structure that could provide insight into the collective trauma of the war or the collective memories that are its legacy. Instead, focus is placed on the psychological and emotional impact of trauma on an individual level.
The main trauma explored in The Paris Daughter is that of grief. Juliette is already grieving the loss of Antoinette at the novel’s outset, a grief that is laced with irrational guilt. It is implied that the trauma of losing her first daughter is what makes her unable to agree with Ruth and Elise’s decisions to leave their children, even to protect them, since she knows the pain of permanent separation. This difference in perspective eventually sours her memory and opinion of Elise, leading her to resent and blame her former friend for her own subsequent losses. Elise, however, is able to come to terms with the reported loss of her daughter through her art. Carving Mathilde, both as an infant and as Elise imagines she would look as an adult, as well as adding to the mural of the night sky, allows Elise to simultaneously preserve her precious memories and process her trauma. Art is used as a way of soothing trauma and to connect the characters to those they have lost. The trauma in this novel is focused on an individual level, but through art these traumas connect and are shared. In this way, the novel functions similarly, as the novel details a series of characters who deal with trauma on an individual level, but this narrative of each person’s individual trauma creates a shared narrative of the war’s effects.
During the bombing that kills Juliette’s entire family, she suffers a serious head injury on top of the profound psychological trauma of the event. Physical injuries and psychological distress (particularly in instances of brain damage and cases of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) can greatly impact one’s perception of reality, one’s personality and mental health, as well as one’s ability to retain and recall memories. Juliette suffers from such long-term effects; she hears the disembodied voices of her deceased family, becomes cold and resentful where previously she was friendly and generous, and cannot connect with the world around her. The most striking illustration of trauma and its impact on memory is in the long-term case of mistaken identity that sees Mathilde raised as “Lucie.” Juliette is unable to accept the reality that her real daughter has died and so lives in denial of the fact that Mathilde was the one who survived. She deliberately represses Lucie’s memories of life as Mathilde and seems only subconsciously aware of that fact herself on a day-to-day basis. Only with the trauma of the plane crash, so reminiscent of the initial trauma of the bombardment, does “Lucie” regain her childhood memories and realize her true identity. Trauma, therefore, functions as a force that both conceals and reveals memory. It takes the new trauma of the plane crash to reveal to the characters their past traumas and their concealed pasts. The shared trauma enlivens the memory between the characters, too, as the trauma helps the characters understand their connections with one another, both in terms of them being people united by trauma and in terms of them being actual family members, in the case of Mathilde and Elise. Trauma can inhibit the characters from understanding their identities, but it can also unlock these identities.
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