Strait Is the Gate is a French novel written by André Gide

André Gide

André Paul Guillaume Gide was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1947. Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist movement, to the advent of anticolonialism between the two World Wars.Known for his fiction as well as his autobiographical works, Gide...

 published in 1909. It is a very sad and moving story which probes some of the complexities and terrors of adolescence and growing up. Based on a very Freudian interpretation, the story uses the influences of childhood experience and the misunderstandings that can arise between two people. It was translated into English by Dorothy Bussy

Dorothy Bussy

Dorothy Bussy was an English novelist and translator.-Family background and childhood:Dorothy Bussy was a member of the Strachey family, one of ten children of Jane Strachey and the great British Empire soldier and administrator Lt-Gen Sir Richard Strachey...

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Plot

The story is set in a French north coast town. Jerome and Alissa as 10-11 year olds make an implicit commitment of undying affection for each other. However, in reaction to her mother's infidelities and from an intense religious impression, Alissa develops a rejection of human love. Nevertheless, she is happy to enjoy Jerome's intellectual discussions and keeps him hanging on to her affection. Jerome thereby fails to recognise the real love of Alissa's sister Juliette who ends up making a fairly unsatisfactory marriage with someone else. Jerome believes he has a commitment of marriage from Alissa, but she gradually withdraws into greater religious intensity, rejects Jerome and refuses to see him. Eventually she dies from an unknown malady which is almost self-imposed.