Chocolat

Harris explores how spirituality manifests in both religion and magic. She presents it as enormously important, with the potential to be empowering or restricting.

Catholicism specifically plays a central role as the major religious force in the village. It shapes the villagers’ lives: They attend church at specific times, make sacrifices for Lent, and exclude people with alternative beliefs. Reynaud is the ultimate example of this—he has dedicated his life to the church by becoming a priest. He has internalized Catholic doctrines, demonizing other ways of life and feeling enormous pressure to triumph over them. He wonders “how many souls [Vianne has] already tempted beyond redemption” (354). However, Harris suggests that religion is often a vehicle through which individuals and groups channel their concerns and attitudes. Reynaud uses it to impose rigid rules, believing that Josephine should return to her abusive husband because of the sanctity of marriage. His “Bible groupies” use it for their social standing and to justify their prejudices against the traveling community. Guillaume worries about whether Charly has a soul or should fast for Lent; his compassion manifests within his religious beliefs. Narcisse makes the palm crosses for the services and helps Reynaud with the church garden, but he also bonds with Roux over plants and gifts flowers to both Vianne and Josephine as gestures of support—his interest in plants and community manifest both within and beyond his religion, and he does not share Reynaud’s prejudices toward outsiders.

Harris also explores non-Christian beliefs, notably concepts of magic and witchcraft, incorporating concepts from various cultures and times but fitting into modern conceptions. Vianne’s mother was a witch who looked down on the beliefs of others, including Vianne’s interest in chocolate and food, because she saw them as earthly, below the spirit world. Although she might seem the opposite of Reynaud, both allowed their spiritual beliefs to dictate their choices and limit their life experiences. She constantly fled death, just as Reynaud zealously punishes himself.

Harris presents magic and spirituality as forces with real world power: Armande can see Pantoufle and knows things that Vianne has not revealed. Vianne’s visions of Reynaud’s père or Muscat hitting Josephine are accurate. Vianne also sees her gift in creating and giving out chocolate as a type of magic. As well as the literal magic of scrying through the chocolate, her chocolate has a symbolic magic, improving peoples’ lives as they bond over it or grow through their relationship with it. Vianne gives Josephine chocolate to help her tell Roux the truth about the fire: some for her to give her courage and some to take to him as an offering.

Ultimately, Vianne uses her spirituality to forge her own narrative, unlike Reynaud or her mother, who were trapped by theirs. She uses rituals to make the shop feel like a safe and happy place when they first arrive, and she pursues her love of chocolate despite what her mother thought. She uses the “magic” of her chocolate to form connections and to spread happiness: “[T]hese are wishes that can be granted, simply” (76).

Vianne’s spirituality is closely linked to another key theme: intergenerational influences. Her relationship with her mother is mirrored by Reynaud’s relationship to his père. This reflects his role as priest rather than any biological relationship to Reynaud, but he is clearly a father figure to him—Reynaud looks to him for guidance and validation.

Both Vianne and Reynaud have inherited their spirituality, worldview, and way of life from their parental figures. Vianne travels around with her daughter and practices a pagan or magical spirituality, like her mother. Reynaud has become a priest and sees his purpose as enforcing Catholicism and conformity in the village community. They have inherited their parent figures’ fears and prejudices, such as the Black Man for Vianne and the Romani people for Reynaud. Both are afraid of ending up like their parental figures in some way—Vianne saw her mother’s fear as she fled death, and Reynaud starves himself, afraid of giving into temptation the way his père did, which he saw as an enormous act of betrayal. They both speak to their absent parental figure throughout the book, but Reynaud’s first-person narrative is entirely addressed to his père, whereas Vianne only speaks to her mother sometimes. This reflects that Reynaud’s father figure continues to define and dictate his life, whereas Vianne is moving forward and forging her own path.

Vianne struggles with the narratives that she has inherited from her mother, at times feeling that the tarot cards hold power over her or that she must keep moving on with the wind. However, she grows in her relationship with these ideas, partly motivated by her wish to give her own daughter, Anouk, a different life. Though the end has an ambiguous note, Vianne has overcome her fear of the Black Man card and the hold her mother’s narrative has on her. She is working on her sense of agency in the face of the wind changing, and she realizes, “I could stay here, Maman” (371). Though Vianne’s mother remains important to her, she has found an independent self: “My voice sounds different to me now, bolder, stronger” (371).

Harris suggests that, through Vianne’s efforts, letting go of her own mother one day will be easier for Anouk to do. Vianne gives her independence, fighting her instinctive urges and letting her run off and play. Harris implies that Anouk already has her own relationship to her spirituality, as Pantoufle is an expression of her thoughts and feelings rather than a pre-existing spiritual concept. As she makes friends in the village, he is around less since she doesn’t need him as much—Vianne’s parental influence is helping her to find a spirituality that serves her, rather than the other way around. The novel hence suggests that intergenerational influences are useful to an extent, but the choice of independence from such influences is paramount.