The Book of Goose

The setting of Agnès and Fabienne’s childhood is postwar reconstruction France. World War II recently ended, but the scars of war are still evident in Saint Rémy.

In 1940, the German military steadily took over countries throughout Europe. By June 1940, France was under Nazi control. While French troops continued to fight German militia, French civilians lived under new, oppressive rules and regulations enforced by Nazis. War is an expensive endeavor, in terms of both finances and loss of life. World War II officially ended in September 1945, and in the years that followed, France had to rebuild its infrastructure, economy, and communities.

The poverty of Saint Rémy likely existed before the war, as it is a village of modest farmers. However, the war exacerbated poverty for everyone, especially those who were already poor. Agnès’s brother Jean symbolizes the human loss of war. Jean was a French soldier, taken prisoner by German militia. He spent three years in a German labor camp, and when he returned to France, he experienced trauma. Jean’s death is slow and painful, a metaphor for the slow process of rebuilding after war.

Agnès and Fabienne are resigned to their fates as future wives and mothers of farmers. This is the only narrative they know from their respective family histories. However, the destruction of war reinforces this set path because there are few opportunities for anyone, much less women. Agnès and Fabienne are not raised to believe they are capable of more, in part because their families work hard to survive war, occupation, and postwar rebuilding. While the girls were saved from the worst of war because they are children, their lives are still informed by war. There is no time or space for anything other than necessities, the girls’ potential being squandered by war.