His father, Joseph, was a blacksmith, and his mother, Emma Monamy, died when he was two years old, after the family had moved to Tours.

Because his grandfather was a staunch anti-clerical republican, he was looked down upon by his classmates, many of whose parents held more traditional views.

Orphaned once more when his grandmother died two years later, he briefly lived with other family members before moving to Dole, a small town of the Franche-Comte region, to stay with an aunt and attend the Collège de l'Arc, where he demonstrated more ability in mathematics than in literature.

[4][5][6] Despite ongoing issues with his health that had begun when he was a child, Aymé was able to perform his military service, which began in 1919, as part of an artillery unit in the occupied Rhineland.

In theatre, Marcel Aymé found success with his plays Lucienne et le boucher, Clérambard (1949), a farce, and Tête des autres (1952), which criticized the death penalty.