From “The War” by Marguerite Duras
“I start to eat again too, and to sleep. I put on some weight. We’re going to live. Like him I haven’t been able to eat for seventeen days. Like him I haven’t slept for seventeen days...” (244).
Word Count: 260
Marguerite seems to be a very devoted wife who has gone through a lot during this time of the war. She had already lost her baby and her younger brother, so I understand the stress and physical symptoms she was feeling because she had to worry about her husband dying as well. As the story develops you are unsure if Robert L. is going to survive because of all the horrible things that he was going through. They described his legs as looking like crutches and when the sun shines you can see through his hands. The disparity of seeing someone you love go through something like this would be unbearable. She even describes herself that she is experiencing all these things because she is afraid of his death, and she can’t bare to lose another part of her identity. I believe that she decided to share these journal entries to show the types of things that mothers and wives would go through during this time. The struggles of worrying about their loved ones who had been deported to the concentration camps and the returnees who sustained unlivable conditions. This amount of stress makes sense for her to endure such restless nights, fevers, no appetite, and a sense of hopelessness for the future.
I love how you mention how she doesn't want to lose another part of her identity as she had already gone through so much prior to the war. Discussing the way she described his appearance after Duras had found him definitely painted a very vivid and disturbing image of the state he was in after enduring the concentration camps.
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