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re: Gigi: accents?

Posted by:	LegitOnce 12:12 am EST 01/20/15
In reply to:	re: Gigi: accents? - enoch10 04:33 pm EST 01/19/15

Gigi is set at the turn of the 20th century, which, when you think of it, is exactly right. Mamita, Aunt Alicia and Honoré are firmly in a 19th century sensibility, Gigi represents the greater frankness of the 20th, and Gaston is firmly in between. The irony of Gigi and a major source of the wit in the Colette story is that it is in fact about a child who is being groomed for a career in prostitution, an institution that the 20th century found disgusting and revolting, but it presents the subject as it was viewed through a 19th century lens, i.e., as something as meticulously bound up in rules and conventions as marriage. Either a version of Gigi shares this ironic sensibility or else it's not really quite Gigi. This is particularly true of Gigi's perceived age at the beginning of the work; if she is not plausibly a child, then there is as little story there as a Pygmalion in which Eliza has exquisite manners from her first appearance outside Covent Garden.

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Thread:	re: Gigi: accents? - enoch10 03:50 pm EST 01/20/15 re: Gigi: accents? - Michael_Portantiere 12:54 am EST 01/20/15 (3) re: Gigi: accents? - enoch10 03:54 pm EST 01/20/15 (2) re: Gigi: accents? - LegitOnce 09:14 pm EST 01/20/15 (1) re: Gigi: accents? - Michael_Portantiere 03:10 pm EST 01/21/15

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