ABSTRACT
Claude-Edmonde Magny, in her study of Les Thibault, says that Martin du Gard does not write about one person, one family, but about the true structure of society. This is reconstituted through the history of a small group, but it is also the picture of life and society as a whole.1 Such a deductive method has of course its limitations. That the behaviour of individuals or small groups can be magnified so as to serve as symbols of the possible behaviour of society as a whole is a premise conceivable in pure logic. But the social structure is actually far more complex and to reduce it to pictures and patterns would certainly miss the essentials. Martin du Gard can, on no account, emulate Tolstoi, Stendal and Melville. At best, he can illustrate, by concrete episodes, their global descriptions of society. Indeed, the second part of ‘Les Thibault’—le Pénitencier-is one such illustration.
