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Bousille et les Justes
Gratien Gélinas jouit d'une importance historique certaine dans le théâtre québécois, dont il est considéré comme le patriarche. Et si certaines de ses pièces ont mal vieilli, ce n'est pas le cas de Bousille et les Justes , qui reste assurément la plus forte des œuvres de l'auteur mort en 1999. La pièce créée en 1959 – année charnière pour le Québec, qui s'apprête à émerger de l'étouffant régime de Maurice Duplessis pour faire sa "Révolution tranquille" – met à nu l'hypocrisie d'une société, expose avec mordant le décalage entre les vertus, la religiosité d'apparat qu'elle pratique, et les valeurs corrompues qui grouillent sous la surface. Le plus jeune de ses fils étant accusé de meurtre, la "respectable" famille Grenon a déménagé ses pénates à Montréal pour le soutenir. Mais pour sauver le cadet et préserver la réputation des Grenon, il faut d'abord convaincre le petit cousin Bousille, seul témoin de la bagarre. Or, cette âme simple et pure, très pieuse, s'entête à vouloir dire "toute la vérité" au procès. Tous les moyens seront bons pour faire changer d'avis le pauvre Bousille… Avec son histoire exemplaire et solidement construite, ses personnages un peu simples, mais bien définis, la verve de Gélinas et son sens des dialogues, Bousille et les Justes fait toujours mouche. À la fois drôle et poignante, la pièce offre un dosage réussi de drame universel et de satire sociale. Et il y a Bousille, touchant, avec sa candeur naïve et sa pureté enfantine… Marie Labrecque
110 pages
First published January 1, 1959
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
March 17, 2022
Gratien Gélinas' 1959 drama Bousille et les Justes (and that title is definitely meant to be ironic at best, as the only truly just person in the play is indeed poor and consistently harassed and abused Bousille) seems to and for me to be in many ways an almost deliberate authorial bastardisation of the unities of time, place and theme of French classic theatre (and therefore also of Greek tragedy). For while the three unities do indeed somewhat seem to make an appearance in Bousille et les Justes, they have and with purpose been used by Gratien Gélinas primarily as a tool for harsh and heavy-hitting satire and societal criticism, for a sad but ultimately necessary condemnation and exposing of early to mid 20th century Quebecois society as corrupt, as abusive, sadistic and above all as very much hypocritical (a society that is on the surface religious and righteously shining, but always and with absolute justification holding to a machiavellian the end justifying the means dictum that protecting one's honour, and especially one's family reputation are the be all and end all, are to be promoted and adhered to at all cost).
In a small hotel room, the on the surface oh so respectable Grenon family has gathered to prepare for the murder trial of their golden boy Aimé (the beloved), but really to first and foremost find a way to have him declared innocent (not only because especially Aimé's doting mother cannot and will not believe that her cherished son, the proverbial apple of her eye, could have killed another man in a fit of jealous rage over the affections of some woman, but also and yes even more importantly, because the Grenons do not want their precious and all important petit bourgeois reputation sullied and besmirched with and by a murder conviction, even if this might, indeed, be the truth, even if Aimé might in fact and indeed be a volatile young man prone to rages, and more than capable of murder).
When an orphaned cousin of the Grenons, when young Bousille (who was with Aimé on the night of the alleged crime and is considered a witness) insists to the rest of the family that he intends to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth (namely that Aimé did, indeed, kill the other man not in self defence but in an act of violent rage), family members at first try to sweet-talk, to cajole but quickly resort to both physical and verbal torture in order to get Bousille to change his mind, in order to get him to not testify against Aimé, but be supportive of him. However, while the Grenon family does indeed succeed in "convincing" Bousille to not tell the entire truth about what happened that night (and Aimé is indeed acquitted mostly due to a lack of credible witnesses and evidence), the abused and tortured, the despised Bousille, in a final and tragic, but ultimately also totally viciously wonderful and hard-as-a proverbial hammer act of absolute and total revolt, makes his way back (off screen) to the Grenon family home and very visibly and publicly hangs himself, thus resulting as one family member mentions to Henri (to the keeper and ruthless enforcer of family pride and so-called honour) in a very public scandal that will NOT be so easily swept under the rug this time.
Now when Bousille et les Justes was first performed in the early 1960s, it was presented and analysed by many newspapers and journals, such as for example the Montreal Star, as supposedly and seemingly an entertaining study of French Canadian life, and that the author, that Gratien Gélinas should also be approached not as a tragedian but as a comedian. But while I would of course NOT in any manner consider Bousille et les Justes as a tragedy in the classical Greek or French tradition and sense, and although there are most definitely and indeed considerable instances of humour, irony and a plethora of interesting and yes even at times laugh-out-loud entertaining comic effects present throughout Bousille et les Justes, the naturalistic in one's face and overt viciousness of how the Grenon family moves together as some kind of collective monster of destructiveness, of utter horror against poor, simple and striving to only be truthful Bousille (to without mercy and thought callously abuse and destroy him externally and internally for honour's sake, in order to protect a guilty man simply because he happens to be a favoured and cherished son), I for one have always found this not at all comic, not at all humorously entertaining, but profoundly infuriating and sadly tragic. And the salient truth of the matter that when we read Bousille et les Justes in a 1987 French Canadian Theatre course at university, that while I did indeed somewhat end up grimly smiling, but also only with tears of rage in my eyes at Bousille basically being forced to commit suicide in order to actually be able to hurt and make his torturers and abusers feel potential future pain and shame (in order to have some type of revenge against his enemies), this is really and truly in my opinion NOT comedy, but the unfortunate and sad fact that Gratien Gélinas has in his Bousille et les Justes with a painfully glowing reality shown the fragility of life and that brutality and viciousness, that pain all too often reign and win through (an incredible play, an important Quebecois drama is Bousille et les Justes, but with a message that while indeed very much essential is not in ANY way even remotely funny).
In a small hotel room, the on the surface oh so respectable Grenon family has gathered to prepare for the murder trial of their golden boy Aimé (the beloved), but really to first and foremost find a way to have him declared innocent (not only because especially Aimé's doting mother cannot and will not believe that her cherished son, the proverbial apple of her eye, could have killed another man in a fit of jealous rage over the affections of some woman, but also and yes even more importantly, because the Grenons do not want their precious and all important petit bourgeois reputation sullied and besmirched with and by a murder conviction, even if this might, indeed, be the truth, even if Aimé might in fact and indeed be a volatile young man prone to rages, and more than capable of murder).
When an orphaned cousin of the Grenons, when young Bousille (who was with Aimé on the night of the alleged crime and is considered a witness) insists to the rest of the family that he intends to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth (namely that Aimé did, indeed, kill the other man not in self defence but in an act of violent rage), family members at first try to sweet-talk, to cajole but quickly resort to both physical and verbal torture in order to get Bousille to change his mind, in order to get him to not testify against Aimé, but be supportive of him. However, while the Grenon family does indeed succeed in "convincing" Bousille to not tell the entire truth about what happened that night (and Aimé is indeed acquitted mostly due to a lack of credible witnesses and evidence), the abused and tortured, the despised Bousille, in a final and tragic, but ultimately also totally viciously wonderful and hard-as-a proverbial hammer act of absolute and total revolt, makes his way back (off screen) to the Grenon family home and very visibly and publicly hangs himself, thus resulting as one family member mentions to Henri (to the keeper and ruthless enforcer of family pride and so-called honour) in a very public scandal that will NOT be so easily swept under the rug this time.
Now when Bousille et les Justes was first performed in the early 1960s, it was presented and analysed by many newspapers and journals, such as for example the Montreal Star, as supposedly and seemingly an entertaining study of French Canadian life, and that the author, that Gratien Gélinas should also be approached not as a tragedian but as a comedian. But while I would of course NOT in any manner consider Bousille et les Justes as a tragedy in the classical Greek or French tradition and sense, and although there are most definitely and indeed considerable instances of humour, irony and a plethora of interesting and yes even at times laugh-out-loud entertaining comic effects present throughout Bousille et les Justes, the naturalistic in one's face and overt viciousness of how the Grenon family moves together as some kind of collective monster of destructiveness, of utter horror against poor, simple and striving to only be truthful Bousille (to without mercy and thought callously abuse and destroy him externally and internally for honour's sake, in order to protect a guilty man simply because he happens to be a favoured and cherished son), I for one have always found this not at all comic, not at all humorously entertaining, but profoundly infuriating and sadly tragic. And the salient truth of the matter that when we read Bousille et les Justes in a 1987 French Canadian Theatre course at university, that while I did indeed somewhat end up grimly smiling, but also only with tears of rage in my eyes at Bousille basically being forced to commit suicide in order to actually be able to hurt and make his torturers and abusers feel potential future pain and shame (in order to have some type of revenge against his enemies), this is really and truly in my opinion NOT comedy, but the unfortunate and sad fact that Gratien Gélinas has in his Bousille et les Justes with a painfully glowing reality shown the fragility of life and that brutality and viciousness, that pain all too often reign and win through (an incredible play, an important Quebecois drama is Bousille et les Justes, but with a message that while indeed very much essential is not in ANY way even remotely funny).
April 28, 2019
J'ai beaucoup aimé ! Ce n'est pas mon genre habituel, mais j'ai apprécié l'histoire de cette famille hypocrite face au traitement des autres, à la vérité et aux croyances religieuses. Ça aide énormément de comprendre le contexte de l'écriture de la pièce, donc je recommanderais fortement une petite recherche avant de commencer la lecture.
April 25, 2016
R.I.P Bousille ✌
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 31, 2024
Considéré comme le grand-père du théâtre québécois, Gratien Gélinas avait dit au cours de sa vie que si une de ses pièces devait passer à l'histoire, ce serait celle-ci. J'ai compris pourquoi à la lecture. Même si j'avais déjà vu la pièce sur scène, la lire m'a rappeler certains détails que j'avais oublié et qui ont leur importance.
Nous y suivons la famille Grenon qui se rend à Montréal pour assister au procès du benjamin de la famille, Aimé, qui est accusé de meurtre. Considérant que la pièce se passe dans les années 50-60, la peine capitale existe toujours pour les condamnations de meurtre et cela cause beaucoup d'anxiété à la famille. Celle-ci, se présentant comme respectable et pieuse, fera appel à toutes ses ressources pour éviter qu'un scandale ne tombe sur leur famille et pour qu'Aimé soit acquitté des accusations contre lui.
Il n'est pas possible d'en révéler davantage sans entrer dans l'intrigue, mais je dirais que tout est minutieusement préparé pour la fin et que l'auteur a pensé à tout.
Quant aux personnages, bien que l'on soit clairement dans un cadre où ce sont les hommes qui font la "loi" et qui "décident", certains personnages féminins ont un rôle central, notamment Noëlla et Colette qui ont un développement plus complexe que la mère de famille qui est mise à l'écart tout comme Aurore Grenon (que son mari Phil éclipse et met à l'écart). C'est un joli vent de fraîcheur à une époque où le modèle traditionnel de la famille est encore très fort et présent.
Chacun d'eux nous fera vivre des émotions ambivalentes allant de la frustration à l'empathie, ou encore de la colère à l'émerveillement. Manipulation, mensonge, hypocrisie, trahison, mais aussi bienveillance, piété et naïveté sont au programme.
Ce que Gratien Gélinas réussit à nous montrer dans cette pièce, c'est à quel point les trois piliers de l'ordre social québécois sont brisés autant dans sa pièce que dans la vie contemporaine. Ces piliers étant la religion, la famille et la justice.
Nous y suivons la famille Grenon qui se rend à Montréal pour assister au procès du benjamin de la famille, Aimé, qui est accusé de meurtre. Considérant que la pièce se passe dans les années 50-60, la peine capitale existe toujours pour les condamnations de meurtre et cela cause beaucoup d'anxiété à la famille. Celle-ci, se présentant comme respectable et pieuse, fera appel à toutes ses ressources pour éviter qu'un scandale ne tombe sur leur famille et pour qu'Aimé soit acquitté des accusations contre lui.
Il n'est pas possible d'en révéler davantage sans entrer dans l'intrigue, mais je dirais que tout est minutieusement préparé pour la fin et que l'auteur a pensé à tout.
Quant aux personnages, bien que l'on soit clairement dans un cadre où ce sont les hommes qui font la "loi" et qui "décident", certains personnages féminins ont un rôle central, notamment Noëlla et Colette qui ont un développement plus complexe que la mère de famille qui est mise à l'écart tout comme Aurore Grenon (que son mari Phil éclipse et met à l'écart). C'est un joli vent de fraîcheur à une époque où le modèle traditionnel de la famille est encore très fort et présent.
Chacun d'eux nous fera vivre des émotions ambivalentes allant de la frustration à l'empathie, ou encore de la colère à l'émerveillement. Manipulation, mensonge, hypocrisie, trahison, mais aussi bienveillance, piété et naïveté sont au programme.
Ce que Gratien Gélinas réussit à nous montrer dans cette pièce, c'est à quel point les trois piliers de l'ordre social québécois sont brisés autant dans sa pièce que dans la vie contemporaine. Ces piliers étant la religion, la famille et la justice.
October 29, 2020
i liked it
October 22, 2023
Parce que le plot twist à la fin était pas pire
December 16, 2024
Had to read this book for French and it was giving nothing…
July 12, 2025
Je n'ai pas l'habitude de lire du théâtre. Un classique qui offre une belle morale.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews