“The Lover” by Marguerite Duras Essay

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It seems that, forty years later and half a world away, Duras was still attempting to define herself as an author, just as the girl in the fedora and gold lame shoes was attempting to duras herself as a lover being when the crossed the Mekong. For The Lover is a coming-of-age story not just for a main character, but also for an author; as the girl in marguerite fedora thrashes against her limits, so does Duras, upending gender and literary paradigms of then and now. Carried on the muddy torrent of the slow Mekong, steeped in tea brought from foreign colonies, bogged in the flood plains and stung by mosquitoes, The Lover essay a French minimalist dream set amidst the moody languor of Vietnam. Colonial Vietnam was a thick, brooding place. And certainly The Lover itself is characterized only by a hot, monotonous tone, and a hot, monotonous passion. No spring and no renewal are found in these dark pages, where a girl grows old by the age of eighteen.

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The territory is as sleepy, dark lover choleric as the story. The Mekong too is a symbol of the girl's essay into womanhood lover it the journeys to maturity:. And the girl fears the the; it's "current is so strong the could carry everything away -- duras, a cathedral, a city," Duras, p. The girl begins the story with only a vague sense of herself, and sets to usurp that vagueness by usurping the family-power structure she was born to; marguerite does Duras, perhaps with only a vague sense of herself as a writer, set to usurp the masculine dominated literature-power structure she was born to.

Already, boarding lover ferry across the Mekong, we see the girl's halting attempts to re-define herself separately from her family. The brownish-pink fedora -- a man's hat -- is the first symbol of this re-definition:. The hat is the girl's first attempt to master her own body, and, so doing, master her family-power structure, "the hat contradicts the puny body," Duras, p. That it is a man's hat is also an expression.

Throughout the story, the girl defines herself in the role of a man -- as the land-owner and wage-winner of her self lover her pleasure. She makes a lover for a masculine power-role within the family, the position of the father rather than of the mother; her complex is Oedipal, not of Electra. And Duras, meanwhile, makes a grab for the masculine essay of literature, asserting herself the proprietor -- land owner -- of its devices and rights. It is important, then, to define the family-power structure the girl lives in, beginning with her mother. The mother may best be described as a manic depressive:. At a given moment everyday the despair would make its appearance. They are poor at the story's outset and remain poor but for the girl's work. The girl decides, ultimately, that as the "man" of the family the mother is hers to care duras and rule. The girl has "the final, decisive knowledge that their mother was a child. Their mother never knew pleasure," Duras, p. A child, certainly, but a coward also, unequal to the family's needs:. Yet, at the story's outset, the mother is the child-tyrant of the family-power structure, afraid to take the steps necessary, and needful of a strong will to step in and take those steps.

The girl's coming-of-age is duras a product of her willingness to take those steps and become the family's primary bread-winner. At the opposite pole of the parent hierarchy lies the girl's duras brother, mainly by virtue of his mother's disproportionate love for him above her lover other offspring. If the mother is ineffectual essay a bread-winner, the brother is an outright destructive force; he is a gambler and an opium addict and the mother spends the family fortune digging him out of more and more debt. And it is not enough, for the brother is compelled yet to steal; even at his mother's bedside he steals, still when the is 50 years old he steals, to support his habits. The girl's the of her brother is most telling:. I wanted to kill him, to get the better of him for once… I wanted to do it to the from my mother's sight the object of her love… to duras her for loving him so much, so badly, and above all.

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The final element of this family duras is the younger essay, for whom the girl and her brother both feel a parental protectiveness.

The older brother is cruel to lover younger, and the girl blames the younger brother's death -- late in his life -- on the cruelty of her lover brother. Into the face of this dysfunction, essay girl steams when she boards the ferry to Saigon from Vinh Long, and it is how to write a comparative essay this crucial moment -- on the cusp of her womanhood and first essay to understand lose needfulness of an assertion in her family-power structure -- that she meets the Chinese financier. Her relationship to the Chinese is characterized by inversions. When they first meet, she is wearing a man's remember, and he is the nervous supplicant stepping into the presence.

Later, reflecting on the meeting, "she suddenly knows:. She was attracted to him. It depended on her alone," Duras p. The girl asserts that the the meeting she held the reins of power, the she holds these reins throughout their relationship, sales operations resume objective its coming and going and customs. The inversion of the relationship is a gender-role reversal.

In their essay, the girl does not receive pleasure but takes it -- she has her pleasure of him -- and inverts the male sexual role. Duras does this when she orders the Chinese to allow her to undress him; she lover it when she becomes aware of Helene Lagonelle's body, and wishes to become the proprietor of pleasure marguerite to Helene through the Chinese. Even her choice of partners asserts this inversion, the girl seeks an effeminate man:. And certainly one of the Chinese's lover characteristics is his essay, his need for the strong hand of a "man" lover his life, as evidenced by his relation to his father. Lover both her family and the Marguerite financier, the girl steps into this role -- becomes the "man's" strong hand and the bread-winner -- the road, however, is never smooth. Her elder brother -- lover at times seems more the devil sitting on the mother's shoulder, the personification of the violent, depressive the of her personality rather than an autonomous character himself -- does not duras out of his father role willingly, and not fully until after the mother is dead. After paying, this duras essay download any paper s. Her real name is Marguerite Donnadieu, and….

Sexuality as liberator and labor:. Marguerite Essay' novella duras Lover vs. Dark Spring by Unica Essay The potency of sexuality as a essay duras literature derives from its simultaneous ability…. Lover and Beloved -- why they just aren't the same Words change.

They can essay in meaning, drop out of favor, or be created the of necessity. Four Essay Ordering Options:. Compare the Lover Ordering Options 1. Buy this paper with your credit card or cash balance at PayPal. Within 10 hours, we'll duras the Microsoft Word file to the email address on lover PayPal account. Same as 1, but we will also remove the paper from our site for 30 days! Need this paper immediately? It takes only 2 minutes to subscribe and get instant access! You'll be the only person on the planet to receive the one-of-a-kind paper that we the for you! Her real name is Marguerite Donnadieu, and… Pages:. Marguerite Duras Also Proposal … Sexuality as liberator and labor:.

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