{"id":31,"date":"2026-03-08T23:54:48","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T06:54:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/wingyun\/?p=31"},"modified":"2026-03-08T23:54:48","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T06:54:48","slug":"duras","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/wingyun\/2026\/03\/08\/duras\/","title":{"rendered":"Is RMST 202 making us read cautionary tales against romance???"},"content":{"rendered":"

The non-linear storytelling was honestly confusing. I know it’s supposed to mimic the narrator’s train of thought but… since I’m not her, I didn’t really know where all this information was coming from! I felt like that “guy who needs context” meme for the beginning portion. There were details all over the place and one second she’s 15, and the next she’s 20, and the next she has a son, and then she’s back to being 15 again. There’s a certain stylistic charm in that but when reading the novel for the very first time, it’s confusing. And then when she talks about her first encounter with\u00a0him<\/em>, she uses third person speech, like it’s not her own story, and she has instead dissasociated from it. Perhaps that says something about the grooming? (I’m pulling at straws here)<\/p>\n

It feels like the male protagonists in all these readings are on a speed run for who can be sent to super mega ultra hell first. How irredeemable can they get? The language used in the novel was also frightening – what specifically stood out to me was “the little white whore from Sadec” (pg. 35). I wonder how these phrases were originally read as in the source language. Were they even more vulgar, or were they adapted to have a similar level of severity?<\/p>\n

More than the grooming going on throughout the whole story, I think this story demonstrates what war and poverty can do to somebody, and their family. For example, the narrator is poor and white, in contrast to the\u00a0lover<\/em> who is rich and Chinese. Meanwhile, her elder brother treats the\u00a0lover<\/em> like he doesn’t exist, even though the\u00a0lover<\/em> is in a higher financial position than him. It gives an interesting perspective on racial ad wealth gaps, but still, it all ends up with\u00a0women<\/em> in the lower rung, despite her white status and therefore “higher racial hierarchy”.<\/p>\n

I think at first, the narrator was attracted to the\u00a0lover<\/em> because that is the only way she could reclaim some kind of control over her life. The way she frames her actions and dialogues is as if she’s choosing this life, that she’s a willing participant, and that the\u00a0lover<\/em> is foolish but she still stays to exploit him. Previously, her impoverished life had no room for control – what did she have? But now, with one thing that is her ‘own’, she’s ‘free’ to criticize him however she likes. Obviously, from our point of view, she’s being groomed and manipulated – but in such a desperate state, the narrator appears to be willing to grasp any rope for help out of poverty, which is why her narration reads like she’s choosing these things for herself.<\/p>\n

Question: What did you think of the nonlinear narration? Did it serve to tell her story better, or was it as confusing as I thought?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The non-linear storytelling was honestly confusing. I know it’s supposed to mimic the narrator’s train of thought but… since I’m not her, I didn’t really know where all this information was coming from! I felt like that “guy who needs context” meme for the beginning portion. There were details all over the place and one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107553,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[16,17],"class_list":["post-31","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-duras","tag-the-lover"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/wingyun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/wingyun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/wingyun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/wingyun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107553"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/wingyun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/wingyun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/wingyun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions\/32"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/wingyun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/wingyun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/wingyun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}