The Replacement

The Replacement Summary | Detailed Summary

"The Replacement," by French author Alain Robbe-Grillet, is a short sketch, or vignette, which touches on multiple plots simultaneously. This sketch was gathered with others and published in the 1962 book Instantanes, or Snapshots." The title is an accurate description of this type of short story, which does not contain a typical beginning or ending, only a middle, a moment of time captured in words.

The story begins with a young boy walking up to a tree that has caught his eye. He reaches for the lowest branches of the tree, trying several times to stretch his arm to meet the branch. After several attempts, he stares at the tree, contemplating something unknown. The boy examines the bark of the tree very closely, with the intensity of a scientist studying a slide.

The next paragraph of the story begins with a description of a boy who has been reading aloud but has now paused. The boy at the tree continues to inspect the bark, moving to a higher position as if he has discovered something new. The teacher notices that the students are not following along with the reading. Even the boy who is supposed to be reading aloud is frequently glancing at the front of the room. The teacher harshly tells him to continue reading, which causes the rest of the class to bend their heads down toward their books. The boy continues reading awkwardly and without emotion. The schoolmaster criticizes him frequently for not pausing in accordance with the punctuation.

The focus of the story moves from the schoolboy outside to the activities in the classroom. While the boy outside studies the bark of the tree, the boy inside the classroom is criticized for his reading ability. Up until this point it is not clear where the boy outside is in relation to the class or if he and the boy reading are one and the same.

As the schoolmaster criticizes and questions the boy who is reading, the boy's attention is pulled toward a large puppet cut out of paper. The other students in the class also glance frequently at the white puppet hanging on the wall. As another student summarizes the passage that was just read, the teacher's attention drifts to the window and the boy across the street studying the tree. The boy outside has moved his attention from the bark of the tree to one of the leaves. After a few minutes of intense study, he tries once again to touch the leaves by stretching his arm up and leaping as far into the air as possible; however, he is still unable to get his hands on the object of his affection.

As the boy in the classroom summarizes the text, the rest of the students turn their attention, once again, toward the large, white paper puppet hanging from the front wall. The puppet is quite rudimentary, with a large head and no feet or hands. Still, it captivates the attention of the students until another young boy picks up the reading, and they are forced once again to follow along in their books.

When the students are once again looking at their books, the teacher's attention shifts to the window with the view of the boy examining the tree bark. The students' attention wonders once more, and soon the entire class is looking at their teacher. They too look out the window, but they are unable to see the boy outside since the bottom half of the window is frosted. Collectively, they turn toward the front of the room to stare at the paper puppet.