I donвЂ™t think this could be prudently imitated except in the rarest of circumstances because it creates a very specific effect. As a reader, I was able to engage with the character on a deeper level and could feel the shift into third person almost as the narratorвЂ™s wince. Shifting back and forth between these narrative points of view is tricky, but Duras managed it well. This disembodiment is characteristic of someone who has undergone trauma and is particularly poignant because the character is at an age where one internalizes this type of experience and blames oneself for it. She sets herself apart from the chaos and pain of these relationships as though it happened to someone else. The narrator is separating herself from the girl who is the center of this action.

But as the description progresses, the specificity of the action as the other brother flees and the mother calms down and the girl lies about her relationship with the Chinese man, makes the description seem like one particular instance. The key to the reasons behind the shift in perspective is in the following passage: вЂњHe answers my mother, tells her sheвЂ™s right to beat the girlвЂ¦The mother hits her as hard as she can.вЂќ I was struck by the poignant disassociation in the shift here as the narrator transitions from вЂњmy motherвЂќ to вЂњthe girl.вЂќ Moments before, the narrator used the first person to describe the beginning of the incident: вЂњMy mother has attacks during which she falls on meвЂ¦punches me.вЂќ вЂњHas attacksвЂќ is habitual, not of the moment, and not in scene. The ease of transition is accomplished by zooming in to look at one object (here the shoes and the hat) and then zooming back out to show the same object from a different vantage point. Switching back and forth between narrative points of view could be maddening for a reader, but the switch is seamless and gives the reader a much fuller picture of the narratorвЂ™s recollections than one viewpoint or the other could have done. In one section the narrator describes her shoes: вЂњThese high heels are the first in my life, theyвЂ™re beautiful, theyвЂ™ve eclipsed all the shoes that went before.вЂќ This is followed by a section break and then the very next sentence is: вЂњItвЂ™s not the shoes, though, that make the girl look so strangely, so weirdly dressed.вЂќ Three sentences later in the same section the narrator is back to first person in describing the provenance of the hat she was wearing: вЂњHow I came by it IвЂ™ve forgotten.вЂќ In each of these sections, the narrator is talking about the same girl and her possessions but the reader is encountering her as both separate and part of the narrator. This mimics the way the narrator is simultaneously reminiscing about a specific period in her adolescence and also judging herself.Д«ecause the narrative voice doesnвЂ™t change when the narrative point of view does, the reader has the sense that the same first person narrator is relating the story from two angles.

She also conveys the sense of the girl as object which allows the reader to both sympathize with the character and subject her to judgment. By switching narration between the first person and third person limited, Duras embodies the experiences of a fifteen and a half year-old girl who takes on a Chinese lover in Saigon. Marguerite Duras throws the reader into the memory of her narrator in The Lover.

The lover duras movie