Colonial Servitude and Indentured Labor in Marguerite Duras's The Lover and Monique Truong's The Book of Salt
Overview
This comparative essay analyzes the themes of colonial servitude and indentured labor in Marguerite Duras's The Lover and Monique Truong's The Book of Salt, focusing on the contrasting character trajectories of Do and Binh. The paper examines how both characters navigate displacement, marginalization, and forced labor under colonialism, exploring their differing responses to oppression and their relationships to loyalty, agency, and survival.
What this essay covers
- Introduction establishing the comparative framework between the two novels and their treatment of colonial themes
- Character analysis of Do from The Lover, examining her loyalty despite mistreatment and economic motivations
- Character analysis of Binh from The Book of Salt, exploring his displacement due to sexual identity and rejection of loyalty
- Thematic comparison of colonial servitude, neocolonialism, and individual agency in both works
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Yihe Shen
T&C
March 12nd 2020
Compare and Contrast Between The Lover and The Book of Salt
The Lover is a book that was written by Marguerite Duras in 2011 and was translated from French. This book has almost similar lessons with Monique Truong's The Book of Salt (2004). This piece of work will get deep into the two books and compare and contrast how the themes of colonial servitude and indentured labor are brought out. My concentration will be on Do, the maid in The Lover, and Binh, who is the main character in The Book of Salt. Binh shares the same fate with Do in some instance while totally contrasting on other cases.
The stories in the two books revolve around colonial time when there were forced labors. Most characters are forced to cope up with the situation that they do not like while others decide to flee. Binh flees his current position but finds himself in a situation that is no better than the previous. This contrasts to Do who chooses to stick to her brutal employer. The narrator, who happens to be a family member to Do's boss, tells us how her mother used to mistreat Do who decided to stay despite all the tough times she was facing.
Binh is a gay cook who hails from Vietnam but has been forced to flee to French after his father disowned him because of his sexuality.