Vietnamese landscape from the French women’s perspective in Marguerite Duras’ novel

Abstract

The paper analyzes the representation of the Vietnamese landscape in the novel of Marguerite Duras, especially from the perspective of the female character. The image of Vietnam through Duras’s work has not only common characteristics of the tropics but also unique, unmixed features, which are marked by places imprinted in the characters’ memories. From the perspective of the French female character, the Vietnamese landscape participates in the process of experiencing a foreign land as well as the process of inner discovery of the character. Identifying the typical hot climate of the tropics in Vietnam will provoke an exploration of the monotonous, stifling life of the French woman with the status of poor white people in the colony. Climate, land, water, flora and fauna, and architecture all carry memories. These memories evoke the image of a non-Western world that is constantly changing, filled with vitality.