Representation and Authorial Purpose (ALTWCS) Flashcards
Doerr’s initial inspiration for the novel
He overheard a man talking on his mobile whilst waiting for a train, when the man complained about reception, Doerr felt that his contemporaries have forgotten how easy communication is in our era and wanted to write a book about that.
What activity inspired the setting of the novel (St. Malo)?
On a holiday he took to St Malo he took a tour and discovered that the entire town was destroyed (levelled) by artillery in WW2.
Which novelist did Doerr look up to as a child?
Jules Verne, author of “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea” and other stories of high adventure
What is Doerr’s position on the eugenics policies of the Nazis?
He thinks it was junk science.
What assumption did Doerr hold about Germans in WW2?
“every [German] is complicit [in Nazism]”
What feature of human experience was a challenge for Doerr to incorporate into his writing style?
Finding a way to describe Marie-Laure’s experience after she became blind. He found he often relies on visual imagery but had to develop his style for this novel.
Who is Doerr’s favourite character of All The Light and why?
Frederick, because he reminds him of himself and because he has ‘moral rectitude’
What does Doerr think about the Nazi ideology?
He believes that their definition of strength was actually weakness.
Why did Doerr choose the heteroglossic structure/double narrative structure?
He wanted the novel to deliberately lead the reader to draw comparisons and see similarities between Werner and Marie Laure.
What did Doerr want the ending of the novel to achieve?
He wanted it to bring the narrative ‘into the present’ to show how the events of the war have a bearing on the present moment.
What political purpose does he set All The Light to achieve?
Doerr implies that he is worried about possible unethical uses of the WW2 narrative by politicians after those that remember the actual events directly have passed away.
What does Doerr think about the human experience of war?
“There is no ‘normal’ [human] experience of the war”
What features of your response can you use to demonstrate your knowledge of representation? (4)
- Discuss the author’s agency to create meaning
- Analyse texts in terms of purpose, context and/or audience.
- Use examples from the text to discuss the effects of representation on a reader (either yourself or another perhaps ‘contemporary’ mock reader)
- Evaluate the text’s depiction of human experiences
