Summary of Pierre and Jean
Pierre and Jean are the sons of the Roland family in Le Havre, in Normandy. Both have recently completed their studies, Pierre as a doctor and Jean as a lawyer. However, when a distant family friend leaves his entire inheritance to Jean, Pierre becomes jealous and begins to suspect that his brother is in fact an illegitimate son. As his suspicions grow into certainty, Pierre becomes increasingly obsessed and cannot help but psychologically torment his mother over her infidelity.
Reasons to read Pierre and Jean
Pierre and Jean is a powerful and somewhat melancholic novella about a middle-class family in a French provincial town at the end of the nineteenth century, torn apart by jealousy, resentment and family secrets. It paints a vivid and realistic portrait of Le Havre, capturing the atmosphere of its harbour, cafés and bourgeois life. Guy de Maupassant was a celebrated nineteenth-century French author, best known for his short stories, including Boule de Suif and Contes de la bécasse, and for his novels Une vie (A Woman’s Life), Bel-Ami and Pierre et Jean.
Setting: Le Havre, Normandy (France)
Original title: Pierre et Jean
Year of publication: 1888
Nr of pages: 144
