Jean Barois

At twelve, Jean Barois is already dying. His mother's death left him frail, his father's medicine unable to save him. But what torments Jean more than tuberculosis is the question that will consume his short life: can a thinking person still believe in God? Roger Martin du Gard's 1913 masterpiece traces Jean's agonizing passage from childhood faith to adult doubt, mapping the collapse of religious certainty against the rise of scientific rationalism. Through intimate family scenes at the provincial estate of Buis-la-Dame and later in the intellectual circles of Paris, we witness a soul in crisis. Jean's grandmother kneels in prayer while his doctor father prescribes fresh air. Friends die. Arguments end in silence. The Church offers comfort that reason cannot match, yet belief requires a surrender Jean cannot make. This is not merely one man's spiritual biography; it is the story of how modernity broke faith and left every sensitive soul to navigate the wreckage alone.