Phuong

1. How is pathetic fallacy used at the start of the extract? Pathetic fallacy is generally regarded as a clumsy device (often used in bad horror films or corny Gothic novels, for example.) What can we say about its use here? Remember, the novel is supposedly being written by Kien, an inexperienced writer... 2. How is imagery used in the opening passage? And the second? 3. After the war, we see that Kien isolates himself from life: 'He stopped reading newspapers, then books, then let everything go. He lost contact with his friends, then with the outside world in general.' Why does he do this?Does it connect to the wider theme of the effects (or the 'sorrow') of war? 4. What form does Kien's inner or dream life take at this stage? How is pathetic fallacy used to represent the turmoil within him? 5. 'He tried desperately to forget Phuong, but she was unforgettable.' How is memory represented in this novel? 6. 'Even love and sorrow inside an aging man would finally dissipate under the realisation that his suffering, his tortured thoughts, were small and meaningless in the overall scheme of things. Like wispy smoke spiralling into the sky, glimpsed for a moment, then gone.' Is there n element of nihilistoc despair in this passage? Is that true of the whole novel?

=WORLD LIT SUGGESTIONS=

=All three novels offer representations of very isolated characters. How is language used to construct this sense of isolation?= =How do //Perfume// and //Sailor// use imagery and narrative to create an opposition between the inner and outer lives of their characters?=

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