SUMMARY
Following the funeral of a distant relative of Narcisse, at around noontime Roux came rushing into the chocolate shop with grave news. He says that he thinks that he killed Armande Voizin. The story was that Roux came to visit Armande after feeling bad for yelling at her the a few days before. But he found Armande half-conscious and asked Roux to go to the fridge to fetch some medicine, and so Roux fetched her some brandy because he thought that was what she meant. Fortunately, when Roux and Vianne arrived at the scene, Vianne managed to save Armande’s life through her quick work and skill with insulin needles. After she recovered, many of the townspeople came rushing to the scene, thinking that she was already dead. But alas, she was not, and she dismissed all of them except for Vianne, Roux, and a doctor that Narcise called in.
After talking to Reynaud one day, Vianne had uncovered a terrible secret that Armande had been hiding all this time. She has been diagnosed with a disease called Diabetic retinopathy that gradually makes her blind. But despite this gloomy discovery, Armande still wants to celebrate her 81st birthday in style, with Vianne doing the chocolate catering. She wants to have all her friends around her and have a feast for the last time in her life.
On a Wednesday morning, Caroline Clairmont and Joline Drou came into the La Praline Chocolate shop. Joline Drou, Anouk’s teacher at the school wanted to talk to Vianne about her daughter’s weird behavior in the school. Apparently, when Reynaud came into the classroom to talk about the meaning of Easter, Anouk began asking various questions concerning non pagan traditions. This confused all of her Christian classmates and disrupted the whole classroom environment. But Vianne dismissed this as being trivial, because she believed that Anouk was just participating in the class. With that being said, Caroline and Joline left the shop in a fit. The next day, the two women began hanging flyers around the town telling people to boycott Vianne’s chocolate festival.
Although this did not faze Vianne, Josephine was very afraid, and when Vianne held her hands to calm her down, she saw that Josephine was thinking about smoke, smoke from the day that Roux’s boat was lit on fire. She tried to get Josephine to tell Roux that it was indeed Paul who started the fire. After a while she managed to convince Josephine to do so, and when she told Roux, their relationship was no longer hostile and fearful. After telling Roux the truth, Josephine became so happy and confident in herself that she actually decided to walk down to the Café de la Republique by herself to collect her belongings. She decided to go on Sunday, when Paul was not at home and at church, but unfortunately, Paul did not go to church on that particular day. Therefore, when Josephine came into the café, she was caught off guard and faced an angry and heart broken ex-husband. Luckily Armande, Guillaume, and Reynaud managed to come to Josephine’s rescue in the nick of time and save her from being seriously harmed by Paul. The Residential Committee that was responsible for boycotting the chocolate festival lost all of its credibility after that event since Paul was part of the committee.
Paul Muscat has fled from the town, leaving the café to the ownership of Josephine Bonnet. She now changes the café’s name from Café de la Republique to the
Café des Marauds, and is fixing it up quite nicely with the help of Narcisse and Roux.
Meanwhile, Reynaud has not given up completely in his plan to get rid of Vianne. He plans to destroy all of the chocolate she has made so that the chocolate festival will not be a success.
Good Friday was the day of the celebration of Armande’s 81st birthday. The guests were Vianne and Anouk Rocher, Caroline, Georges, and Luc Clairmont, Guillaume Duplessis, Josephine Bonnet, Julien Narcisse, Michel Roux, Blanche Dumand, and Certisette Plancon (two gypsies). Everything went according to plan, and even the worrisome Caroline managed to loosen up a little. The feast was lavish, unhealthy, and delicious at the same time. In the end though, when the time was approaching 1 o’clock, Armande began getting sleepy. When Vianne settled Armande in her bed, it is evident that she has finally passed away. But she passed away happily, and in the way that she wanted to as well. After that, Roux and Vianne abruptly kiss, and it would be the last time they would do so.
At 4:00 A.M on the morning of Easter Sunday, Reynaud put on his balalclava mask and put his devious plan into action. However, as he entered the store, he was seduced by the wonderful chocolate that lay before him. Today was the day that his fast could finally be broken, and break it he did. He began eating bits and pieces of every type of the chocolate in the shop. He wasted so much time that eventually at 6:00 A.M, the bells started ringing to signify that Jesus had risen. To his demise, he saw Vianne and others staring at him on the ground, lying there smeared in chocolate and disgrace. From there, Reynaud ran off into Les Marauds, never to be seen again.
And from there, things started taking a turn for the better. Vianne was able to tidy up the shop fairly quickly and begin the chocolate festival. In short, it was a great success. At 4:15 in the afternoon, Vianne was able to deliver all of her orders and sold the last of her gift boxes. Late in the evening, Guillaume came in with a letter from Armande. In the letter, Armande tells Vianne to not come to her funeral but instead, to invite all of her friends around La Praline and have a pot of chocolate.
In the end, Anouk has forgotten her imaginary friend Pantoufle and has replaced him with real friends. Guillaume has found happiness in a new dog, Roux and Josephine are together happily in their new home at the Café des Marauds. Also, the little town of Lansquenet is no longer an invisible town, as the chocolate festival attracted many foreigners from far and wide. All in all, the town is happy and satisfied, and does not need Vianne anymore. Although she feels the need to leave sooner of later, she does not feel rushed. She does not feel the need to run away from anyone anymore.
QUOTE
“ Why should she struggle to preserve for any longer a condition doomed to this inevitability? ” (Harris 270).
REACTION
I would have never expected the story to end in the way that it did. What I expected was that Reynau’s plan would kind of work, but in the end, he would come to his sense and accept Vianne into the town. However, Joanne Harris ended it by having Reynaud being disgraced and run out of the town while Vianne has a happy chocolate festival. I definitely am glad that the protagonist has a good ending, but I feel much remorse for Reynaud. I wished that he would be one of those antagonists that turned a new leaf in the end and go down honorably. There were so many events in the story that hinted towards that particular ending. For example, after Paul Muscat’s attack on Josephine was made public and everyone no longer listened to the Residential Committee, Reynaud himself said that Vianne had won and only a miracle could save them now. I took this to be an honorable acceptance of defeat, but I guess I was wrong. Also when Reynaud finally succumbed to the deliciousness of the chocolate on the morning of Easter Sunday, I could have sworn that he was going to turn into such a happy man. However, Joanne Harris introduced a major plot twist that caught be completely off guard. For that, I applaud her writing style.
I almost forgot that this book utilized magic realism. Magic realism is the reason why Vianne is able to know most of the townspeople’s feelings and know their favorite type of chocolate. I was reminded of this aspect of the book when Vianne touched Josephine’s hands and suddenly deduced that it was Paul Muscat who burned Roux’s boat at Les Marauds.
The quote that I chose for this section actually was something that Vianne said in relation to Armande’s disease. She said that she finally understood Armande’s thinking. Her thinking that sometimes, some things are just inevitable that you just have to let it happen. I found that this quote could actually be applied to the entire section. It could mean that the townspeople of Lansquenet were inevitably going to change anyways, with Vianne’s help, so why should Reynaud try to stop the inevitable? I mean this in a good way, as in Reynaud should have allowed for some good changes to occur in his town.
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