The Story Archive

Cleaned Out

Annie Ernaux · 1974 CE · Novel · French · Contemporary

A twenty-year-old literature student lies alone in her room in Rouen waiting out a backstreet abortion and goes back over the grocery-café in Normandy where she was raised, the private school that took her in on merit, and the season she began to be ashamed of her parents. The account is addressed to nobody and spares nobody. Ernaux's first book fixed the subject she has never since left: what it costs to cross out of one's own class.

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Attributes

Genre
PsychologicalComing-of-Age
Theme
Class & InequalityComing of AgeIdentity & SelfIsolation & Alienation
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
EverymanRebel / Outlaw
Plot structure
ConfessionNonlinear / FracturedBildungsroman
Symbol / motif
The HouseThe WoundThe Book / Manuscript
Conflict
vs Selfvs Society
Mode / tone
RealistIronic
Culture / tradition
French

Closest analogues