Jyoti Tamisier- Fayard 11/9/15
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La Fleur Du Démon
Have you ever had a present where you are so attached to it that it almost becomes an obsession? Or that it becomes so dear to you that when you lose it, it feels like you lost a big thing. La Fleur Du Démon ( The Flower of the Demon) by Oto Hisamu is basically the story of how a demon named Bibi came to the human world because he was bored of his life in his demon world. On his second year of living in the human world, Bibi found a baby girl abandoned in front of his castle. Not thinking, Bibi took in the crying baby and named her Hana because her smile reminded him of a flower. 14 years have past and Hana has brought a flower (mostly a rose) everyday to Bibi.
As time was passing, Hana never knew when her birthday was and never celebrated her birthday until a demon friend of Bibi convinced him to celebrate it. For Bibi, it was very hard to find a present for Hana because he did not understand the purpose of celebrating the age of someone who had such a short life compared to the life span of a demon. Finally, with the help of Ayam, a lady who used to give blood to Bibi, he bought a necklace with the pendent of a pink rose. When Bibi gave Hana her gift and saw how much she cherished her necklace, this is when I thought, "A present can mean more than just a present. It can become a symbol".
My first reason I thought this is because in the case of Hana, since she is the main character of the whole serie, the necklace was like a good luck charm to her. As long as she had it around her neck at all times, she felt like she could do anything. Furthermore, the necklace is also a symbol of the first time Hana and Bibi met. Since it was her first birthday celebrated, a flower necklace was like a thank you for both of them and Hana in Japanese means flower so the necklace also relates to her name.
Lastly, when Bibi was gone or they were apart, the necklace made her feel less lonely and safe because she felt like Bibi was with her.
To go back to the questions I asked in the first paragraph, they relate to what happened to Hana at the end of the story: when Bibi returned to the Demon world, he snatched the necklace as a sign of goodbye forever so that Hana would forget about him. As Hana understood his actions, she felt a great grief and sorrow because the necklace was the only thing that she had from him and was the only thing that tied them together.
