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I Remain in Darkness | Introduction

The volume I Remain in Darkness is Annie Ernaux’s collection of unedited journal entries that she wrote over the last two and a half years of her mother’s life. The entries depict Ernaux’s highly personal reaction to her mother’s decline to Alzheimer’s disease. As Ernaux experiences an almost overwhelming onslaught of conflicting emotions, she reflects on her past and, most particularly, her relationship with her mother, Blanche. Although in previously published works Ernaux has explored ties to her family that were fraught with difficulty, I Remain in Darkness provides an intensely intimate, immediate portrayal of the bonds between a grown daughter and her dying mother.

Published in France in 1997 and translated into English three years later, I Remain in Darkness was for over a decade Ernaux’s private chronicle and almost remained so. Ernaux writes in her preface that she initially believed she would not publish her journals, ‘‘Maybe because I wanted to offer only one image, one side of the truth portraying my mother and my relationship with her.’’ She had already written about this relationship in A Woman’s Story, her autobiographical novel about a mother and daughter. However, as several years passed, Ernaux began to question her own wisdom; ‘‘The consistency and coherence achieved in any written work . . . must be questioned whenever possible.’’ Read in conjunction with A Woman’s Story, I Remain in Darkness thus provides a multifaceted portrait of the life of a rural, working-class French woman. Read in isolation from other Ernaux works, I Remain in Darkness still tells a poignant story of a powerfull love.

I Remain in Darkness Summary

I Remain in Darkness chronicles the decline of Ernaux’s mother, Blanche, from Alzheimer’s disease. The first sign that something is wrong comes in the summer of 1983, when Blanche faints. Taken to the hospital, the doctors discover that she has not eaten or drunk anything for several days. Ernaux realizes that Blanche can no longer care for herself, and she invites her mother to come live with her and her sons. By December, when Ernaux writes her first journal entry, Blanche is already suffering the loss of memory that comes with Alzheimer’s. By January 1984, Blanche can no longer write. Her last words, in a letter to a friend, read, ‘‘I remain in darkness.’’

In February 1984, Blanche, prostrate and refusing to eat, is checked into Pontoise Hospital. The ward where she lives is filled with other older patients who also suffer from limited physical and mental capacities. She remains at Pontoise until mid-May, when she is... » Complete I Remain in Darkness Summary