Mouchette (novel)

Mouchette is a 1937 novel by French author Georges Bernanos. It is also known by its alternate title, Nouvelle Histoire de Mouchette (New History of Mouchette). The novel tells the story of a young, impoverished girl named Mouchette in rural France. Abandoned emotionally and physically, she navigates a harsh world of poverty, neglect, and abuse.

The narrative focuses on Mouchette's inner life and her struggles against the indifference and cruelty of those around her. She grapples with her family's poverty, her dying mother, her aggressive father, and the hostility she faces from her classmates and other villagers. A key event involves an encounter in the forest with Arsène, a poacher, which further complicates her already troubled life and leads to tragic consequences.

Mouchette is known for its unflinching portrayal of suffering, its exploration of themes such as innocence, despair, isolation, and the search for grace in a seemingly godless world. Bernanos's writing is characterized by its psychological depth and its ability to evoke a sense of both the grotesque and the sacred within the human experience.

The novel was adapted into a critically acclaimed film, Mouchette, by Robert Bresson in 1967. The film closely follows the narrative of the novel and is considered a significant work of French cinema.