On the surface of the novel, the battle between Vianne Rocher and Francis Reynaud can be easily summed up as a war between the church and chocolate; however, a closer look lets you know that Joanne Harris never intended to demonize organized religion; instead, Harris aims for a narrative that bursts more with heart than criticism. Vianne and Reynaud are perfect foils of each other; for one, Vianne is a witch, though she does not use the term, and Reynaud, a priest.
Why Vianne decided to open a chocolaterie on the first day of Lent is not openly discussed nor questioned by anyone except for the Cure, Reynaud. He even asks her what she attempts to accomplish, setting in motion the idea that a showdown is imminent, with him quipping to himself that Vianne would be out of business by Easter. In his private thoughts, we see his rage against Vianne and his obsession with her Grand Festival du Chocolat bloom the more the novel progresses; at one point in the story, he even hears a woman eating chocolates during her confessional, angering him to the point of screaming at her through the latticed opening, only to realize that he had imagined the whole thing. He knows that he has until the Easter Festival to undo her, to remove her influence from the town, to preach virulently against her and her chocolates, and becomes consumed with the idea that she is his mortal enemy, bent to undermine the Catholic church, and by extension, himself.
Vianne herself makes note of Reynaud, marking him as her enemy by relating him to ‘The Black Man’, a recurring motif in her mother’s folklore, a symbol of fear and darkness. Throughout the novel, she invokes her mother, Jeanne, with fragile grace and love, inviting us into memories of her and Vianne during their mad dash across Europe; we learn through Vianne’s thoughts that her mother was a witch, who taught her daughter all the magic she knew, while at the same time running from her own version of ‘The Black Man’. In her thoughts, Vianne, though kind, with great powers of empathy and charm, struggles with her own personal fears, typified by this incarnation of The Black Man, Reynaud. She thinks often of her daughter, Anouk, whom she loves and adores, but fears that she may be leading her down a path she may not deserve, with lack of permeance, old friends, and a horizon to call home. She attributes their nomadic, vagabond lifestyle to following the wind, something her mother taught her, ‘the gypsy wanderlust that took us all over Europe and farther,’ and desperately hopes, for her daughter’s sake, to finally be able to call a place home. For this reason, even with Reynaud’s bullying and sabotage, she remains rooted like a weed in his church garden, refusing to be blown away by the changing wind this time. For her daughter’s sake, she decides to finally stand up to The Black Man.
A point to note is that although Reynaud grew up in Lansquenet, he, too, is an outsider like Vianne. It is frequently stated that he was a Paris Seminarian, who only returned to his hometown when the former Cure, Pere Antoine, retired to Les Mimosas, the nearby nursing home; as such, many characters, like the farmer, Narcisse, remark that Reynaud doesn’t ‘know the land, it’s needs, it’s demands.’ Reynaud frequently mentions in his chapters that he feels as though the people of Lansquenet show little warmth to him, and he is feared, respected, but not loved, unlike Vianne.
The seeming ease at which Vianne inserts herself into the community feeds into Reynaud’s rage, viewing her as a weed that needs to be weeded out. Although giiven Reynaud’s origins in Lansquenet, the people seem to flock to Vianne, who as well as being the protagonist, serves the purpose of challenging Reynaud’s claim to being the lynchpin of the town. Whereas Vianne is charming and kind, Reynaud is harsh and arrogant. Vianne believes in fairy tales and domestic magic and good luck charms and the power of love and chocolate, whereas Armande Voizin, who reminds Vianne so much of her mother, speaks of Reynaud not believing in magic, unsure whether ‘he even believes in God’. For the people of Lansquenet, Reynaud symbolizes their guilt and their imperfections, whereas Vianne represents their joie-de-vivre; Vianne herself acknowledges this at one point in the novel, claiming that she sells ‘dreams, small comforts, sweet harmless temptations to bring down a multitude of saints crash-crash-crashing among the hazels and nougatines…’
Latent sexism emerges in the way that Paul-Marie Muscat, Josephine’s abusive husband, and Reynaud treat Vianne as she settles into the town. Reynaud does everything but brand Vianne with a scarlet letter, insinuating that she is a dangerous whore who, and in the words of the gossip queen, Caro Clairmont, ‘flaunts that illegitimate child of hers’, and Muscat with the way he bullies his wife, the battered and miserable Josephine, and to some extent, the way he treats Vianne after she offers to house and employ his wife, even calling her a ‘bra-burning bitch’. These men, however, get their just desserts; Muscat is deserted by Josephine and descends into alcoholism, and in the process, loses his café to her, and Reynaud finally comes crashing down like one of Vianne’s imagined saints, finally succumbing to the magic of the chocolates after breaking into the chocolaterie.
Harris, with charm and wit and high farce and love, manages to point the fingers of people’s bad habits not to any faith or religion or belief, but to the convictions of their own beating hearts; Vianne succeeds not because her magic is stronger than Reynaud’s faith, but because of her ability to love and care for the people she connects to, even if those same people were not necessarily welcoming her with open arms upon arrival. The novel ends with Reynaud’s defeat at the hands of the chocolate festival, and with Vianne conquering over the influence of The Black Man, pondering if she should stay in Lansquenet or not, wondering if she should follow the changing wind blowing through the town at the start of Easter Sunday. We are not given much after that, as we leave Vianne singing her mother’s lullaby about the changing wind, but we know that should she and Anouk leave, there’s always a place called home in Lansquenet.
