Memoirs of a Nun

Denis Diderot’s Memoirs of a Nun serves as a template for pre-revolutionary France.   The book demonstrates the tensions at work between the old guard and Enlightenment thinkers.   The Catholic Church and its leaders are representative of the oppressive institutions and often tyrannical leaders of the Old Regime in France.   The novel’s protagonist, Susan serves as the model for those disempowered, disenchanted, and otherwise negatively affected by that Regime.   Her struggle to free herself from the mental, emotional, and physical imprisonment she is subjected to display her inclination and determination for rational and natural thought.   The Church’s repression of her thoughts and desires are indicative of its detrimental effect and pervasive impact on society as a whole.   Understanding the struggle between Susan and the Church help in understanding the ongoing tension between Enlightenment thinking and the oppressive rule of the Old Regime in France prior to the Revolution.  
Susan’s imprisonment in a convent speaks volumes of the corruptive force the Church and the prevailing social norms of the time had on her family.   Her father essentially disowns her, her sisters shun her, and her mother abandons her.   That Susan is so poorly treated is through no fault of her own.   The illegitimacy of her birth dictates her circumstance.   Susan’s mother feels confining her daughter to a convent is the only way to redeem her own infidelity.   Furthermore, her mother believes it her only option to avoid the consequential embarrassment it would bring her as well as her family in the eyes of society.   Susan makes clear her opposition to life as a nun as she “protested against this strange proposition, and declared roundly that {she} felt in no way drawn towards the cloister” (p.4).   Her objections fall upon deaf ears and result in a deep despair as she cries out “I am a wretched girl, whom everyone hates and wants to bury alive here” (p.4).   Her mother is unaffected by the...