El Papillon book It consists of a story about a man who was unjustly convicted, for which he tries to escape on many occasions, in this article details of this novel will be explained.
It tells the story of a man and his various escape attempts.
Papillon Book
The book Papillon was published in the year 1969 by the author Henri Charriére who was of French origin; in this story it is characterized by being an autographic novel, becoming a sensation in the area of literature due to its narration and the plot, where the readers are involved during the course of the story.
The situations of a man who was sentenced to a confinement which they describe as suffocating, since he must perform various forced labor in French Guiana are told. The situations that the protagonist lives are terrible and through the narration the motivation of the man is introduced in continuing to try to escape from that place despite all the problems that arise in each of his attempts.
The realistic descriptions reflected in the work about the cruel and atrocious conditions that the protagonist lives in the coexistence of the other characters who are also condemned to work in that place. For this reason he expresses feelings of fear and pain, due to the desperation of the protagonist for not being able to escape.
The characters in this novel experience dangerous situations becoming lethal, these events happen practically on a daily basis, so in the narration there is no rest before the suspense of the story, getting to involve the readers in a way that is transmitted the suffering of each of the characters in the play.
When the book Papillon was published, it was a resounding success, obtaining good reviews from the public, which praised the narration of the work and its development. The acceptance of this novel was so great that the author created a second part which was titled Bank, being a direct sequel to the Papillon book.
The sequel explains the new events that the protagonist lives after escaping from prison, showing new dangerous events thus giving a higher level of suspense, but again highlighting his persistence and not being dominated by fear in the moments he finds himself. evading justice.
One of the main characteristics of the Papillon book is its narrative content, since it adopts a protest tone or a way of accusing the prison system of being cruel and of imposing brutal conditions on convicted persons, since in those places they must endure a bad treatment on the part of the authority even of not giving the human rights established by law to subsist.
In this way, it talks about how inmates are treated in the vilest way, enduring hellish conditions, thus generating emotional problems, since it increases stress, fear and panic. The forms of torture he has to suffer to break his spirit and self-esteem are shown, so that readers can feel the pain through the narrative.
The plot was rated by readers as interesting, due to the suspense that involves the hopes of the protagonist to escape from those hellish conditions and also includes the misery in the events, developing a link between the reader and the story to establish a greater impact with the outcome of the story.
In this novel the story presents a first-person narration, which consists of the protagonist trying to escape from that infernal prison, it is shown how he does not lose faith in finding freedom, likewise all his effort to escape from those miserable conditions is described. recover what he had lost, emphasizing at all times his innocence and that the sentence was unfair.
A hostile world is shown with little chance of achieving the dreamed freedom, but despite everything, the resistance of the protagonist and his way of acting in the face of various unfavorable circumstances are exposed, maintaining his perseverance and eliminating all fear that is generated in prison.
The author implants in the book a human spirit that is exposed during the narration, so that in each text the emotions that each character has can be transmitted, among which persistence, patience, faith, trust and courage stand out. . In this way, the possibility of achieving dreams is demonstrated when hard work is carried out while preserving dignity and respect in any situation.
For each of these human details, the Papillon book marked a turning point in the history of literature, establishing a precedent with respect to the specific modality in the narration of novels, since it seeks to expose and describe turbulent and unfair situations, inviting the reader to question these systematic measures.
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The characters in this book are introduced with a dense personality, their development is solid, so that it impacts the readers by the way they trigger situations. When the story evolves, it combines the actions of the characters with a new plot, which is considered in the background.
The author was an ex-convict who did not have a study of literature or advanced training in writing. He was in dangerous places and went through very hard experiences from which he survived; These events are what prompt him to tell his story through a novel detailing important events in his life.
In this way he relates to the world his own situations that he had to go through, which led him to terrifying circumstances, his ability in literature becomes evident with this novel where he exposes his soul by writing and transmitting all the positive and negative emotions that those moments produce. In a person; these descriptions are said to have been the key to international success.
This book can be considered as an autobiography of the author, since all his experiences and sufferings are exposed in his narration, so knowing his biography can have a general idea of what the book is going to be based on, this is due to that Cherriére sought to tell her story as an example in the face of injustice.
Author bio
The author of the Papillon book was Henri Charriére who was born in 1906 on November 16 in France, specifically his origin was in Saint Étienne. He had a nickname given by the people around him, which was "Papillon" which is a French word for Butterfly due to a tattoo on his chest, from this name he was inspired to place it as the title of his most famous book. .
He was the son of a family of teachers from Gras and Sorgues, his parents were Joseph and Marie Louise; his childhood was calm and happy until his mother died in 1917, when he was about to turn 11, this event marked a resounding change in Henri Charriére so that when he was 17 years old he enlisted in the French Navy in 1923 .
He served the country of France for 2 years, then he resigned and entered the world of low society, dedicating himself to shady and non-legal businesses, he began to interact with illicit people, he was like that for six years where he kept his businesses together to a life of excess until he even married a French woman.
wrongly accused
On October 26, 1931, he is accused of the murder of a pimp named Roland le Petit, due to a confusion due to the shady deals that were mixed; However, he obtained an arbitrary trial where he was declared guilty despite the fact that he maintained his innocence, for which he became a victim of the French judicial system.
He was sentenced to forced labor for life in the penal colonies located in France; the prison to which he was taken was in Caen however he remained for a short period of time, since he was transferred to the Salvation Islands for unknown reasons, these islands are located in French Guiana exactly.
first escape
It is at this point where the story of this author becomes extraordinary, because when he was in a hospital in 1933 he escaped together with other prisoners named Clousiot and André Maturette, they achieved this thanks to the help of a boarding school assistant. , because he was a close friend of Charriére.
With this escape they become fugitives, they kept sailing along the coasts of Trinidad and Tobago reaching Colombia; They were accompanied by other prisoners who accompanied them on their navigation, but they stayed in Colombia due to bad weather, but Charriére wanted to continue with Clousiot and André.
However, bad weather prevented them from advancing from Riohacha, so they were captured again; Due to this, a new sentence is added to their sentence, and they are imprisoned in Santa Marta. Later they are transferred to Barranquilla, where they try again to escape although they were unsuccessful.
New escape attempts
After several escape attempts, the arches of his feet break; because of this his feet were permanently flattened. Later, they were transferred to French Guiana in 1934, due to their escape attempts, two years were added to their sentence, which consisted of isolation on the island of Saint-Joseph.
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After spending two years of isolation his companion and friend Clousiot dies, this being a very important event in the life of Charriére; Later he is transferred to the Isle of Royale where he again tries to escape, however he does not succeed due to an informant who alerted him to his intentions.
However, the informant was murdered, which harmed Charriére's sentence, since 8 years were added to his sentence. While 19 months had passed of his new sentence he was released because he saved a girl from drowning in shark waters, this action was rewarded with his release from the new sentence, but he still had the first sentence.
feigned dementia
He begins to feign dementia so that they transfer him to a smaller asylum, with the intention of facilitating his escape, however at that time the Second World War began where they established that any attempt to escape would be punished by death, since there was the probability that he would join the enemy army.
Despite this, Charriére tried to escape, which he managed to do but was unable to escape completely, as he was quickly captured. However, since he feigned insanity, they did not sentence him to death, but some time later he requested that they be transferred to Devil's Island; which was used as a criminal colony where they mistreated all the prisoners.
After several months, he was in charge of studying the waves that hit the island, with this he was able to certify that the seventh was the one indicated to facilitate the impulse to sail out to sea, so he tried to escape with a companion named Sylvain, who He died when they were carrying out their escape plan, however Charriére managed to escape as planned.
Establishment in Venezuela
When he reached the mainland, he looked for a boat to continue sailing, so he continued to Venezuela, but was again captured and transferred to the El Dorado Prison in that country. However, the treatment they gave him in that prison was very different from what he had received; he was released on October 18 in the year 1945.
He settled in Venezuela until he even married a Venezuelan named Rita Alcover, founded a restaurant called "Gran Café", wrote his memoirs on the tables that currently exist on the Sabana Grande Boulevard in Caracas, obtained Venezuelan nationality in the year 1956 although she was still a fugitive from the French authorities.
It was in the year 1969 when he published the book Papillon, where he narrated a novel taking his life as the basis for his creation, for which he captured the values he obtained on each trip, in each injustice lived and the experiences he suffered in all those years, demonstrating the mistreatment that was received in French prisons and how badly their judicial system worked when convicting an innocent person.
Due to this his popularity increased nationally, since he was not known as a fugitive but as an adventurer who suffered a great number of circumstances with mixtures of emotions being exposed to loneliness, illness, injustice, torture and fear. affecting your emotional state.
Return to france
Due to the success obtained, he released a continuation called Banco, where he exposes the injustices of the system again and also of the notice of power of the authorities, although it did not have an impact in the same way that the Papillon book had great profits, so it obtained greater stability economically. and socially.
He is informed of the visit of the French president to the country of Venezuela, giving him the option of retaking ties to his native country with his entire family, it is also mentioned that many journalists are waiting for him to talk about his adventure and his international success with the Papillon book.
This is due to the great popularity that he gained with his works, however he still had restrictions on his stay in France due to his escape from the penal system of that country and that at that time he had a Venezuelan nationality, so he was not allowed to be in his country for more than two weeks.
Thanks to the interventions of the president, he had various benefits on his return to France where he was able to share with his relatives that he had not seen for years and who did not consider him a wanderer, quite the contrary, this encouraged Cherriére to continue in his new career in literature and other related activities.
When he returns to France, he is hired as a screenwriter and also as an actor in the film titled Popsy Pop in 1970, in the same way he participated in literature events, since he was considered an adventurous hero who exposed the problems in the systems to the public. penalties.
In 1973 he was diagnosed with throat cancer, for which he was allowed to spend his last months in France so that he could live with his family. During his stay in Spain, specifically in Madrid, he died of this disease.
