"Liberty, Equality and Fraternity"
These words are carved into the exterior of the school Antoine attends. It is also the national motto of France. We see these three words rather briefly after Antoine has been placed in the corner by the French teacher for being caught with an image of a pinup girl. The slogan has an ironic bent in The 400 Blows, as we can clearly see that Antoine is systemically deprived of liberty and equality by his teachers and in his home life with his parents. Antoine is also betrayed by the fraternity of his classmates, and his only friend and ally is René. The deprivation of these three rights—rhetorically central to the school and to France itself—casts an even more ironically tragic light on Antoine's experience.
Solitude
Throughout the film we see Antoine struggle with his parents, teachers and other adults who don't seem to give him attention or care. This deprivation of affection pushes Antoine further and further away from what is deemed to be “normal,” because he has no one to relate to.
The first time we see Mrs. Doinel listening to Antoine is when he returns home after sleeping in the paper factory. She isn’t emotionally connected with her son, and when he begins to tell her about why he’s struggling, she doesn’t attempt to go any deeper with him. In the absence of real affection, Antoine isolates himself to find solace. All of Antoine's personal issues push him to the outskirts of society and away from normal connection. He flees the observation center and runs to the beach, fully alone. With no one else around, he walks into the water a bit, and then stares at his last and only companion—Truffaut's camera.
Sex & Pregnancy
Truffaut uses mirrors in an early scene to express Antoine being in a state of figuring out his sexual identity, as he combs his hair at his mother’s vanity with multiple mirrors capturing his image. Shortly after this scene, Antoine goes to the store to buy flour for his mother, and walks up to hear two older women talking graphically about a woman giving a bloody birth. The thought makes Antoine queasy, and we see an adolescent coming in contact with the adult world of sexuality.
Additionally, the film starts with schoolboys passing around the image of the pinup girl. It’s an image that fascinates the young boys, and it also gets them into trouble. The school is all boys, and while these boys are already looking at women, some even having sex (so says Antoine to the psychologist), they aren’t being integrated with girls. It isn't until their day wandering around town that we see Antoine and his friend René interacting with a girl, as they walk through a park each of them holding one of her hands.
Sex is also explored when Antoine catches his mother kissing a man, who isn't her husband, in the street. The fact that Antoine sees the affair actually happening creates confusion in the young man about sex and commitment. Indeed, Antoine is already confused about these aspects of life, as he knows that he is the product of an illegitimate affair, and that his mother initially wanted to abort him when he was in her womb.
Betrayal
Throughout the film we see Antoine’s parents having the opportunity to be there for him, to do what’s right, but constantly letting him down and meeting his actions with punishment and neglect. By the end of the film, they give up their parental rights to the state, and try to wash their hands clean of him. This betrayal is magnified when we find out that Antoine has known his mother never wanted to have him, that she wanted an abortion, and that Doinel is not his real father. The people who are meant to be responsible for his well-being let him down at every turn, and Antoine can rely on no one but himself (and René).
Antoine's Imagination and Mind
Part of what makes Antoine so badly suited to everyday life and normal schooling is the fact that he is very intellectually curious and alert when he wants to be. His wayward attitude is not only due to the neglect of the adults in his life, but also due to his being trapped in his own mind, often dreaming up new schemes and hardly paying attention to the world around him. He wants nothing more than to have freedom from the institutions that tie him down, but this has partly to do with his desire to be an adult, to pursue and do whatsoever he chooses. After his mother makes the deal with him that she'll give him 1,000 francs if he writes a good essay, he begins reading Balzac. He has a passion for Balzac that surely few of his classmates share, even building a shrine for the novelist, but his passion cannot translate into the classroom, where he is expected to think inside a very narrow box. When Mr. Doinel takes Antoine to the police chief, he notes that Antoine is particularly spacey, always lost in thought, and dreaming about something else. Even though this is one of Antoine's virtues, and what makes him a reflective child, it is not celebrated by the adults in his life and he is punished for it.
Punishment
While the viewer gets the sense that perhaps more love would give Antoine a better sense of proportion and motivate him to do well in school and behave better, this is not the ethic touted by the adults in his life. Instead, force and punishment are the norm. The film is a series of mishaps in which Antoine is punished by the adults in his life. He is suspended, slapped in the face, scolded, and eventually put in a jail of sorts. When Mrs. Doinel asks the judge how she might better control her son, he says, "Perhaps you exercise control too inconsistently." While there is some truth to this statement, the viewer also knows that the adults in his life are exceedingly emotionally negligent of the young Antoine, who simply wants to feel wanted and loved by his parents. Antoine contends not only with the consequences for his actions, but also a philosophy of accountability that favors punishment and force rather than understanding and curiosity.
Freedom vs. Captivity
Antoine has a strong drive to break free from whatever confines he finds himself in. He longs to not have to go to school, to wander the streets, and to make his own way in the world without the disapproval of hypocritical adults. He achieves freedom when he stays away from home for the night and wanders the streets, stealing a bottle of milk from a delivery man. Then later, he finds freedom when he stays at René's house. These tastes of freedom, however, are punished harshly, and when his stepfather doesn't know what else to do with him, Antoine is put in a tiny cell. In the back of a barred truck, Antoine looks at the bright lights of Paris and the world of possibility, but cries that he is kept from it, behind bars. By the end, Antoine manages to escape captivity, climbing under a fence and running away from the observation center. He finally achieves the freedom that he's longed for, and makes his way to a beach, looking out at the ocean (which he has never seen)—an image of wild abandon and ultimate freedom.
