Write for 10-15 minutes on Duras's shifts in time and place.  Make sure that you can specifically cite a passage where the narrator moves from the 1930's to World War II or even to the present (1980's). Also, make sure you know whether the narrator is talking about Vietnam (and where) or France.

• Paolo dies in 1942 during the Japanese occupation of Saigon
• Family refuses to acknowledge any ceremony, and sort of remembrance 57
• The mother hits the narrator because she appears to be a prostitute and she is now unmarriageable 59--shift in perspective (3rd person--creates distance from the subject of the narrative and the content of what is being said)
• Periodically, the narrator experiences moments of levity, cleanliness; but only when the elder son is absent  62
• Elder brother reminds the narrator of World War II 62
• Shift to Paris: Marie Claude Carpenter, Betty Fernandez (collaborators)
• Literary circles in Paris during the German occupation: Drieu La Rochelle, Brasilach
• Switch from Paris, 1940s to her teens 69
• The narrator represents the mother's only hope; for this she does not reprimand her when she is out with the lover 70-71
• The narrator is a sensualist at an early age--she desires Helene Lagonelle who stays at the state run boarding school 72
• Reflection on her work as a writer--she is in the present in her apartment in Paris 75
• The elder brother's violence and his unscrupulous ways (he's an informant on Jews)76

• Recollection of brother's tyranny at home 80
• The Lover's own parental conflicts 83
• Fear of madness 84
• Alienated women 86
• Cholon and Sadec 88-89
• Narrator lies to her mother 93
• Mother's association with France 95
• Father of lover has plans to send the narrator away 97

• Few Character names
• Switch in perspectives
• Rich attention to detail--creates a striking image
• Use of pathos (emotion)
• Sense of disruption
• graphic and somewhat obscene
• Construction of the narrator reflects the messiness of memory
• Novel is more lyrical than plot driven (when something happens)