Phuong+after+the+war

1. How is 'victory' in the war presented on page 79? How is this reflected in Kien's personal narrative? (Try page 84.) 2. How is narrative parallelism used on page 81? 3. Why does Kien remember Hien? 4. On opening the door, '...the air, stagnant for several years, flowed out, emerging like a dying gasp.' What is the symbolic value of this location? 5. Kien is prone to violence, it appears (page 84.) Why is this? How does this character trait reinforce the wider themes of the novel? Consider also Phuong's statement on page 85: 'Those memories won't release us.' 6. The story continues, in more or less linear fashion, on page 85. This is the first time we have maintained this degree of linearity. Why does the novel become (slightly) more structurally straightforward at this point? 7. Page 86 - Kien had=s difficulty with maintaining distance between his inner and outer lives (see page 86.) How is language used to describe his response to this? 8. On page 86, Kien starts to write his memoirs. What imagery is used to describe the process? Why? 9. It becomes clear that the novel is a metanarrative; why is narrative so important to Kien? 10. Has Kien experienced some sort of epiphany by page 87, described oxymoronically as offering 'melancholy joy.? What is the nature of this experience? Is it significant that the title of the novel comes from this part of the text? 11. 'To Kien dead soldiers were more shadowy yet sometimes more significant than the living.' Can we compare Grenouille to Kien in any way?

=WORLD LIT SUGGESTIONS:= =Both Kien and Grenouille live on the border between the real world and an inner life. How is language used to describe these worlds?= =Love is a motivating force in both Perfume and Sorrow. To what extent are these novels conventional love stories?= =Both Perfume and Sorrow refuse to offere conventional narrative or thematic resolution. Why?=

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