1. Plot summary

2. Adaptation

3. References

La Clé sur la porte (meaning "The Key is in the door") is a novel written by Marie Cardinal and published in 1972. It is the story of a woman trying to reexamine her own values and free herself from social restraints after suffering a lifetime of oppression. The novel describes her self-therapy; a kind of experiment, allowing her children the freedom she never had in her own strict upbringing, and her ‘interviews’ with their friends.

Plot summary

A forty-year-old woman describes her life living in an apartment in Paris with her three children and their friends. As a community experiment based on total freedom the key lives permanently over the door and everyone comes and goes as they please. She contrasts her formerly strict and closed world against the free one of today; obedience to values against wavering anarchy; alacrity and faineance; hard loneliness versus warm fraternity. Marie Cardinal invites us to question these themes in this personal and passionate book, rich in humour and emotion. La Clé sur la porte is a serious and picturesque novel of today's youth, written by an elder who knew how to commingle.

Adaptation

A movie with the same title was adapted in 1977 by Writer/Director André Weinfeld from the novel. It starred Annie Girardot and Patrick Dewaere and was directed by Yves Boisset.

References

• Marie Cardinal, La Clé sur la porte (Paris: Livre de Poche, 1972)

• Athletics at the 1968 Summer Olympics - Men's 10000 metres
• Athletics at the 1968 Summer Olympics – Men's 10,000 metres
• Athletics at the 1968 Summer Olympics – Men's marathon
• Athletics at the 1970 Asian Games
• Athletics at the 1970 Central American and Caribbean Games
• Athletics at the 1971 Pan American Games
• Athletics at the 1972 Summer Olympics – Men's 5000 metres
• Athletics at the 1972 Summer Olympics – Men's 800 metres
• Athletics at the 1972 Summer Olympics – Men's marathon
• Athletics at the 1973 All-Africa Games
• Athletics at the 1974 Asian Games
• Athletics at the 1974 Central American and Caribbean Games
• Athletics at the 1975 Pan American Games
• Athletics at the 1976 Summer Olympics – Men's 10,000 metres
• Athletics at the 1976 Summer Olympics – Men's 5000 metres
• Athletics at the 1976 Summer Olympics – Men's marathon
• Athletics at the 1978 All-Africa Games
• Athletics at the 1978 Asian Games
• Athletics at the 1978 Central American and Caribbean Games
• Athletics at the 1978 Commonwealth Games
• Athletics at the 1979 Pan American Games
• Athletics at the 1980 Summer Olympics – Men's 100 metres
• Athletics at the 1982 Asian Games
• Athletics at the 1982 Central American and Caribbean Games
• Athletics at the 1982 Commonwealth Games