Madam l'Forget Amoureux

The story concerns a young married woman, whose upper class husband, described as a handsome, well-built man, has been paralysed from the waist down due to a WWII injury. In addition to his physical limitations, his emotional neglect of his wife forces distance between the couple. Her sexual frustration leads her into an affair with the gamekeeper. The class difference between the couple highlights a major motif of the novel which is the unfair dominance of intellectuals over the working class. The novel is about realization that she cannot live with the mind alone; she must also be alive physically. This realization stems from a heightened sexual experience she has only felt with lovers, suggesting that love can only happen with the element of the body, not the mind.