- Sébastien Roch
Infobox Book
name = Sébastien Roch
title_orig = " Sébastien Roch"
translator =
image_caption =
author =Octave Mirbeau
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country = France
language = French
series =
subject = child sexual abuse by priests
genre = Novel
publisher = Charpentier
release_date = April 1890
oclc = 23394078"Sébastien Roch" is a novel written by the French journalist, novelist and playwright
Octave Mirbeau , and published by Charpentier in 1890.English translation : "Sébastien Roch", Dedalus, « Empire of the senses », 2000, 266 pages (ISBN : 1873982437).
Plot summary
That is the emotional story of "the murder of a child’s soul" by a Jesuit rapist, set in the private school of Saint-François-Xavier in
Vannes (Brittany ), where Mirbeau spent four painful years as a pupil, before being expelled, at the age of fifteen, in suspicious circumstances. The young and innocent Sébastien, whose christian name is significant, is seduced, then raped, by the diabolical Father de Kern. The novelist studies the destructive consequences of this trauma.At the end, Sébastien, as a soldier who doesn’t want to kill anybody, is killed in absurd circumstances during the 1870 Franco-Prussian War : the Army finishes the destruction task begun by the Catholic Church.
Commentary
Octave Mirbeau denounces thechild sexual abuse s and the impunity of the rapists, especially when they are priests : for the first time, he breaks a lasting taboo.But, for him, what is called « education », within the context of family, school and church, is also a dangerous violation of the children mind. Rather than a
Bildungsroman , i.e a novel of self-cultivation, "Sébastien Roch" is a novel of self-destruction.ee also
*
List of books portraying paedophilia or sexual abuse of minors External links
* [http://www.leboucher.com/pdf/mirbeau/sroch.pdf Octave Mirbeau, "Sébastien Roch"] .
* [http://membres.lycos.fr/octavemirbeau/dprefacesaccueil/PM-preface%20Sebastien%20Roch.pdf Pierre Michel, Foreword] .
* [http://membres.lycos.fr/michelmirbeau/darticles%20francais/Ferron-ViolSR.pdf Laurent Ferron, "Le Viol de Sébastien Roch : l’Église devant les violences sexuelles"] .
* [http://membres.lycos.fr/magnadea/darticles%20etrangers/Ziegler-deathandperfect.pdf Robert Ziegler, "Toward Death and Perfection in Octave Mirbeau’s "Sébastien Roch"] .
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