5 h 4 minAudiobook4 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What belongs to you when the crowd, your teachers and your habits all claim a share of your mind?
In Maurice Barrès’s A Free Man, Philippe tries to build an inner life that others cannot take from him. He watches his moods, tests his desires and asks what he should keep for himself. The struggle is quiet but demanding: how can he protect his independence without letting other people decide who he is?
Published in 1889, this French novel is the second book in the Cult of the Self trilogy. It offers less a plot than a method of self-examination. Barrès treats freedom as a craft that needs practice, not simply a feeling. Sensations, memories and desires become material to study, enjoy and question as Philippe searches for self-mastery.
What you’ll discover
- A mind at work Follow Philippe as he examines the moods and desires that shape his inner life.
- The pressure of others Explore the threat that crowds, teachers and familiar habits pose to independence of mind.
- Freedom as a craft Consider an approach to freedom built on discipline rather than a passing mood.
- A self in motion Meet a vision of the self as a stream of sensations, memories and desires.
- The pleasure of reflection Settle into slow self-examination, where watching a mind matters more than following fast action.
Who will love it
For readers who love introspective fiction, French literature of the 1880s, and questions about independence of mind, self-mastery and inner freedom.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Other people threaten the inner self
- Freedom needs a method and discipline
- Feelings are material to study and enjoy
- Self-mastery leads outward, and critics push back
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A Free Man
by Maurice Barrès · 1889
Philippe studies his moods and desires to build an inner life that no crowd, teacher or habit can take from him.
Challenging5–10 hours to read25 languages
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In short
A Free Man is a French novel by Maurice Barrès, published in 1889 when he was in his twenties. It is the second book of his trilogy called the Cult of the Self.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Other people threaten the inner self
The trilogy begins from a feeling of siege. Barrès calls the outside world the barbarians. By this he means the crowd, the convention and the ready-made opinion that press on a sensitive young person. In the first volume the hero is hurt by them. In A Free Man he answers back.
The answer is not to fight the world in public. It is to guard a private territory. Philippe withdraws so that he can find out what is truly his, apart from what he was taught to feel and think. The book treats this retreat as a first step, not a final home.
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What is A Free Man by Maurice Barrès about?
It follows a young man who tries to protect and train his inner life against the pressure of society. Through self-observation and discipline, he looks for a freedom that belongs to him alone.
What is the Cult of the Self trilogy?
It is Barrès's three-book series of the late 1880s and early 1890s. It consists of Under the Eye of the Barbarians, A Free Man and Berenice's Garden, and it studies how a person builds an inner life.
When was A Free Man written?
It was published in 1889 in France, between the first and third volumes of the trilogy. It is a work of fiction, though it draws on the author's own youthful questions about independence.
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