Summary Of Marcel Aymé's The Ration Ticket

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Marcel Aymé’s ‘The Ration Ticket’ (1942) sends specific political messages through Jules Flegmon’s diary account from the introduction and dissolution of the time ration ticket policy. The rations in the story shows that time is a commodity, and when this applies to the amount of time allocated to a citizen to live per month, Aymé writes of how the German soldiers measured the value of French lives. I will discuss the responses to the German policy to show how the upper classes suffered less under the imposed regime through their wealth and power over the social system. Also, I will discuss the protagonist’s reactions to the rationing once again demonstrating the value of the citizen’s lives, and through the value of the time ration tickets since it produces a new economy throughout the story. ‘The Ration Ticket’ criticises the way the lives of the French citizens are valued under their occupation. For …show more content…

During the initiation of the rationing, he records in his diary that the working girls are allocated ‘seven days a month’ (18th February), and pities Jewish citizens who are only allowed ‘one-half day of existence per month’ (18th February). As a result, this documentation of time allocation discloses specific political messages that oppose the notion that Jewish lives and the lives of sex workers are worth less than others. In contrast, Flegmon’s rather neutral documentation of this suggests that Aymé has not created any political messages through Flegmon’s subjective account of the situation as someone who did not oppose the measure until it impacted him. Expanding on this, Flower claims that through the use of diary accounts both Aymé and Flegmon ‘subverts his moral authority as a dispassionate commentator by what seems to be self-deceiving compromise or downright opportunism’ (page