Ion

Ion by Liviu Rebreanu

Project made by Ioana Mureșan (class: 10F)

General info

Ion is a social novel written by Liviu Rebreanu and published in 1920. It is the first modern Romanian novel and depicts the struggles over land ownership in rural Transylvania.

What is it about?

The novel "Ion" follows the life in Pripas,a Transylvanian village from the begginning of the XXth century, showing it's different typologies of people and their behaviours along with their traditions. We'll meet Ion, the protagonist, Ana, his wife and their marriage that actually mirrors the values that they adopted from their parents and the society that they live in.

his daughter

his wife

Ion

Ana

Vasile Baciu

Main characters

Values present in the book:

• dignity
• equality
• freedom

+info

Dignity

Because in the village, people don't look at him with the respect that he expects, Ion tries to distinguish himself by gettint rich. He believes that the safest way to do this is to marry Ana, the daughter of Vasile Baciu, one of the wealthies man in the village, whom he was initially in love with. Marriage with material purposes was common at that time and he even had the example of his father, even if he doesn't consider his dad his rolemodel because he brought the family to the point of poverty due to the alcohol.

Equality

As we saw, the money represents the power in this village. And because Ion wasn't a very powerful villager, he found a way to become one. He manipulated Ana into falling in love with him and then he impregnated her before marriage.Now, everybody in the village was looking at Ana with bad eyes and treated her like she was inferior to the other girls. Besides this, her future mother in law was being harsh on her, Ion and her father were beeting her while pregnant every time they were angry and the villagers were simply looking at this abuse but not taking action.

Freedom

Prior to her relationship with Ion, Ana was promised by her dad to George Bulbuc, a hardworking and wealthy man wanted by all the girls. This shows us that Ana actually never had the freedom to choose her own husband wich might be a reason why she fell in love with Ion, who could have possibly been a way to escape the forced marriage with George, not knowing that this thing would led to a worse one that will steal her freedom more.

What should we learn from this book based on the values presented?

Freedom

Equality

Dignity

Everybody should have the right to choose their future even if it means to make mistakes. We learn from mistakes!

Even if someone made mistakes, we should try and understand their actions and help them to overcome the challenges in their life.

We should to distinguish ourself in good ways and make people respect us for who we are not what he have.

Why do I like "Ion"?

Some places described are real

It's based on true things

Ion and Ana's stories are based on two real persons. Besides this, a lot of people confronted with arranged marriages in the past and in some regions it is still happening.

Pripas, the village where everything takes place is real and it was actually named Prislop and now is named after the author of "Ion", Liviu Rebreanu. This, the descriptions of the view and the way people talked in the novel made me feel like I was at my grandparents house, enjoying some days of summer at the countryside.

Conclusion

I recommend this book to anyone who is above the age of 14 and likes to read about the everyday life of a comunity and the drama that happens inside of it.

After you read the book, you can enjoy the movie made after it :)

Thank you!