Franc¸ois Mauriac and the search for happiness

Many of François Mauriac's characters seek, throughout the course of his novels, an abstraction referred to as le bonheur or happiness, the definition of which varies from individual to individual and from one situation to the next. Sometimes it is the search for a tangible "something", a particular object that is earnestly desired. The individual assumes that happiness will naturally coincide with the attainment of the desired object. The avarice of the people of the Landes, their unquenchable thirst for money, land and prestige leads many of Mauriac's people to seek a material or measurable basis for their happiness. Others try to find a certain state of being in which they would be content to remain for a long period of time-usually a state of isolation, seclusion, solitude or anonymity-and this forms the foundation of their search for happiness. Often they pursue their object through other people, by trying to love both within and without a marriage framework, but with varying degrees of success. However, all of them try to find something that gives meaning and purpose to their individual lives. It is the struggle toward this goal that allows them to find some degree of the bonheur terrestre in their lives