The Lover: Power Dynamics and Memory in Post-Colonial Contex

The Lover: Power Dynamics and Memory in Post-Colonial Context Eng 325 Week 9 Unit B: The Lover 1. DISCUSSION BOARD Reading: The Lover (Page 49 to the end) novel by Marguerite Duras (If you cannot find novel, you can read summary from internet. Try to use sentence from book for Weekly Wiki.) Discussion question: “The book is much more about power than love. Love is an exchange of power. Look, The Power Exchanger wouldn’t be as great a title, but the book is a chess game. It’s about what happens during these moments of exchanges of power, between the lovers, between cultures, between family,” [Catherine Lacey]* said. The Lover is a post-colonial book; set in what was then called French Indo-China, now Vietnam, the action of the novel takes place within the political, economic, and cultural boundaries of a colonial relationship. The main character is female, young, inexperienced and poor, but she is also a white European, while her male lover, experienced, older, wealthy, is Asian. What do you make of the shifting "moments of exchanges of power" that occur throughout the novel? Who has more power and why? Does this change over the course of the narrative?

Which characters develop (if any) and how? 2. Weekly wiki (150 words). (Try to find a sentence from book) Students will choose a short excerpt / quote from one of the readings of that week, type it in, then add a short (150 words or so) explanation for your choice. Was your selection important because it: · is an example of beautiful or striking language? · exemplifies a particular theme or character? · makes the reader think about something in a new way? · is typically "American" in some way (and in what way)? · was just something that you liked? Try not to use the same quote that someone else already has; if you must, make sure that what you say about it is original. For example: "My country is the world, and my religion is to do good." Thomas Paine. I chose this quote because I think it is a good example of Enlightenment thought which was very popular during the late 1700's. Paine is rejecting formal ties to any specific country or any particular religion (humanist world view). He is focused on the here and now, not an afterlife, and this concern is evident in his writing about social and political systems that influenced the thinkers behind the American Revolution. The language is simple and straightforward. 3. Write responses for other 3 student’s work. (50-75 words for each) First student: Duras recreates a chain of memories all stemming from this ferry ride on the Mekong. Some of these memories, fading, but reworked for the liking of our narrator.

Some incredibly vivid, multifacted, and live within the ordinary of her adolescense. These remnants of memory, so far, have been some of the most enjoyable words I've read. She tells us how she remembers her sepia toned silk dress. She tells us she always remembers certain dresses she wore during those days.

Not so much for the shoes. She repaints herself wearing gold lame high heels decorated with diamante

flowers. She must be wearing these, they have afterall eclipsed all other shoes that have come before them.

She is wearing a a man's fedora. She doesn't remember how she got this hat, but tells of what may have happened for her to have such a hat. It could have happened this way, she tells us. This story reminds me of one of those old italian frescos. For centuries they've been touched up again and again. How can we be sure they're still as close to the original image? Regardless, she fills in the blanks of her memory with grand and sometimes ridiculous images that no doubt are ingrained in my memory. Now that we have the image of this girl we're able to navigate the surreal way this story is told and have a place to return if we find ourselves out of rhythm with our narrator. She tells us it's over, she doesn't remember when referring to her mother. She's closed her out of her head. She can't remember her voice, scent, eyes, laughter, or cries. Our narrator doesn't attempt to fill in these blanks. She wants to leave them as blanks. Here our narrator's forgetfullness feels intentional and almost like solace. She has no need to flesh out something more from what little memory she has of her mother. This makes her easy to write about. Duras shows just how maleable can be. In those dents of memory where she can't give exact details, she'll hammer out an image that looks too perfect. Though sometimes she'll leave them just as they are.

Beyond doubt, the relationships between memory and forgetfulness are Duras’s way to write the novel, the Lover. Fortunately, I have read a book about psychology, and it says that people will spend more time and thinking to describe more details when they are lying. However, liars would like to repeat the situations and details many times for correct themselves because people always cannot remember all events. The lover is an autobiographical novel, all stories mostly base on Duras’s experiences. However, the time span is quite long for Duras when she started to write the novel. So, forgetfulness is reasonable, but the forgetfulness makes the novel pretty authentic. For example, the protagonist can remember all the rude or dissatisfied things that her mother did to her, but she cannot remember her mother’s smell, the color of her eye, voice, and countenance. I think if Duras focuses on describing the mother, it is hard to avoid mistakes, and make the situations not look like real. Also, she can give us a feeling of her hate to her mother.

Contract with her forgetfulness to her mother, she can remember all the details about her lover, the Chinese guy. For example, the protagonist says that she can remember the tactile impressions of his skin, and his smell, even the furnishings of the room where they enjoy with each other. Also, she repeats several times in the novel to show her emotions to him, which is not forgetful. Anyway, the Lover is a novel, instead of a memoir. People will not think all the stories are true, and there are something fictitious.

However, Duras makes the novel looks so true by using the memory and forgetfulness.

The association between forgetfulness and memory in The Lover story is that, for Dura, the knowledge, recognition or awareness that one has forgotten something is in fact part of memory. These two are what defines the true nature of memory in human beings; it becomes clear that memory is not linear, but random and what makes it random is that people, when remembering incidences tend to forget some aspects. It is for this reason (forgetfulness) that a person’s memory is rendered contradictory and unreliable. The incidence of the photograph highly describes memory-forgetfulness relationship. The narrator in the contest of the otherness notes that she can only think about the image, as she can envision it right then, often treating it like a photograph. She is not sure about it, as she notes it may have existed and even photography of it takes. However, none happened because the subject back then was of little concern, as no one could have thought of taking a photograph. Someone would only have taken a photograph, if he/she was aware about the importance of the crossing of river event in the narrator’s life. However, the narrator indicated that except for God, no person knew about the occurrence of the event and its happening. After describing this, she notes that the image exists not, it was forgotten, omitted, and “It never was detached or removed from all the rest “(10). The narrator seems to suggest the image is typical to a photograph, which symbolically represents memory. The memory, just like the photography has presence, in that like the photograph, it can be examined, interrogated, as well as, scrutinize. Like the photograph, only the memory knows and can reveal what is real and true. The photograph also tells more about forgetfulness, as it also highlights what was present or absent leading us to remember the events or memories attached to it, which may be easily forgotten. Likewise, a prick of our memory, captivating use just like a photograph may lead us towards remembering memories forgotten in the past that we may try to recreate, thus making memory random. Nonetheless, there is also the indication of human forgetfulness, which even a photo cannot recreate. At one point, the narrator thinks that the photograph may have been takes. She even notes that the image may have been detached from her memory and at some point, at the end, notes that it never existed or it was forgotten or omitted. She cannot examine her memory to determine whether the image really existed and neither can she rely on it to remember its existence. This shows forgetfulness makes memory contradictory and unreliable.

Paper For Above instruction The novel The Lover

by Marguerite Duras intricately explores the fluid dynamics of power, memory, and cultural identity within a colonial framework. Set in French Indo-China, the narrative emphasizes the shifting exchanges of power between characters and across social borders, revealing how dominance and submission evolve through subtle interactions. Initially, the young female protagonist, a white European, seems to hold a certain societal power due to her race and youth; however, as the story progresses, her economic dependence and cultural positioning diminish her influence, giving way to her older Asian lover, who wields wealth, experience, and familiarity with the colonial landscape. This transfer of power highlights the complex dialectic where identity and status fluctuate, revealing that power is a chess game played on the exchanges of intimacy, cultural knowledge, and economic leverage. Characters develop through these shifts — the protagonist, confronting her vulnerability and colonial identity, gains a nuanced understanding of her own powerlessness and longing, while the lover consolidates his influence by exploiting these nuances. This dynamic underscores how colonial relationships are characterized by asymmetry, yet also inner transformations, culminating in a layered depiction of power, where control is temporary and context-dependent.

One poignant excerpt from the novel encapsulates the mutable nature of memory and its relationship to identity: "Her memory is like a photograph, sometimes clear, sometimes blurred, but always subject to the interpretation of the observer." I chose this quote because it exemplifies the theme of memory's unreliability and its influence on self-perception. Duras's portrayal of memory as a visual and elusive phenomenon encourages readers to reflect on how personal histories are constructed and often distorted over time. The analogy to photography underscores the transient and selective quality of remembrance, which aligns with the novel’s emphasis on the fragility of recollections amid the upheavals of colonialism and personal change. Recognizing memory as both a personal and socially shaped construct enriches our understanding of how individuals negotiate their identities within shifting cultural landscapes. This quote exemplifies the novel’s core theme that memory, like history, is subjective, and always susceptible to the distortions of time and perspective.