Tag Archives: family

Marguerite Duras, “The Lover”

4 Replies

Marguerite Duras’ novel, “The Lover,” is a unique literature that explores the themes of love, family, and colonialism. At first, I was confused about the story’s setting as there seemed to be a diverse array of ethnicities and there were some city names (such as Mekong, Cholon, and Saigon) that I had never heard of before. It turns out that this novel was based on the French colonial period in Vietnam in the 1930s, which piqued my interest. At the novel’s beginning, I thought that the protagonist’s family was well-off because her mother greatly valued education and wanted her daughter to specialize in mathematics. Later on, it was revealed that the protagonist’s family was poor. Still, they were White which heightened their socioeconomic status: “The head agrees because I’m white and the place needs a few whites among all the half-castes for the sake of its reputation (pg. 71).” 

Throughout the story, the protagonist has to navigate through complex family dynamics and her sexual relationship with an older Chinese man who is very wealthy. The blatant racism and prejudice in some parts of the story were very discomforting as societal norms and racial prejudice made the relationship between them unsustainable. Everyone gossiped about their relationship when they found out which caused tension between the two so they never connected on a deep level despite their sexual desires. Even though the Chinese man was rich and treated her well, society and even her own family couldn’t look past his ethnicity and still considered the girl to be too good for him. 

Furthermore, this is another novel from this course that plays with the fickle characteristic of memory. The storyline was fragmented, with her repeatedly retelling the death of her younger brother then jumping to the present where she had a husband and then back to her first lover. It made the plot a little more complex and engaging as it left the readers connecting the story and timeline on their own. Another interesting aspect of the narration is that the author switches from first person to third person throughout the story. At first, I thought it was to detach herself from unpleasant memories and interactions by narrating it as if it didn’t happen to her but to someone else instead. But I think it was more for the protagonist to reflect on her life in the past from the present from an external viewpoint because she can see and understand things more clearly now that she’s older and wiser. 

Discussion Question: 

It appears that the girl harboured a love/hate relationship with her family, especially her mother. How do you think the girl’s family influenced her life’s choices in relationships, education, and prospects? Do you think she would have continued the relationship with the Chinese man if her family wasn’t a factor in her life?

Marcel Proust, “Combray”

8 Replies

Combray: Section 1

The novel opens with the narrator drifting in and out of consciousness, describing all the thoughts and memories that sneak into his mind as fatigue blurs out his rational thinking. The main story told was from his childhood, he recounted the days spent in his grandparents’ house where he was sent to bed early to face his insomnia alone as the adults continued with dinner. His only consolation was the anticipation of his mother’s goodnight kiss, which was frowned upon by his father. The only nights where his mother did not come upstairs to kiss him were the evenings when they had guests over, usually M. Swann, who the narrator described as “the unconscious author of my sufferings (p. 44).”

At the beginning of this reading, I struggled with the complex writing and lengthy sentences. It was difficult to follow the narrator’s story as he jumped from himself to others and from the future to the past. I kept circling back and re-reading paragraphs because of confusion surrounding the setting and characters, which increased my frustration and impatience. However, when I started to just read forward, the pieces fell together in a much more coherent manner and the story of the narrator’s childhood in Combray slowly began to unfold. A quote that stood out to me was from M. Swann’s father about the death of his wife: “It’s odd, I think of my poor wife often, but I can’t think of her for long at a time (p. 15).” This line perfectly captures some people’s grief after the loss of a loved one; you find their presence in everyday things such as a brush of wind or a distant melody, but you cannot bear to think about them for too long before the pain of their absence creeps in. 

Combray: Section 2

Entering the second section of the story, it appears that the narrator jumped further back in time to relive the memories spent at his Aunt Léonie’s house. Although the narrator does a wonderful job painting a picture of the steeple of Saint-Hilaire (Combray’s church), the length and complexity of his sentences somehow escalated. There were instances when I finished a sentence but had to search for the beginning of it to remember what he was talking about in the first place. Overall, Proust’s writing was deep and thoughtful, revealing fragments of his past life to show readers the intricacy of human relationships and memories.

Questions

The narrator experiences high levels of anxiety before bed, leading to my question “What makes the character so anxious before bedtime? Is it external factors (such as his family) or internal factors (such as the fear of being alone)?” Ever since his Uncle Octave (Léonie’s husband) died, his aunt has been “always lying in an uncertain state of grief, physical debility, illness, obsession, and piety (p. 50).” This leads me to wonder if the narrator’s anxiety was perpetuated by his aunt’s mental health, as she was plagued with the belief of getting sick.