The Sea Wall (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: Marguerite Duras
- First Published: 1950
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Psychological realism
- Time of Work: The 1920’s
- Setting: The Pacific coastal plain of French Indochina and the city of Kam
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction
- Subjects: Mothers, Parents and children, Colonialism, Sex or sexuality, Alienation, 1920’s, Ambition, Money, Widows or widowers, Floods, Southeast Asia, Indochina
- Locales: Indochina, Kam
Characters Discussed
Ma, a widowed, eccentric settler in French Indochina who has struggled for seven years to make a worthless tract of coastal land profitable amid the annual assaults of the Pacific Ocean. Much of her strength, resolve, and sanity was broken when her attempt to build a wall to hold back the sea failed. Following the collapse of the dikes, Ma’s life has been a routine of planting rice in vain and finding some person, object, or institution on which to place the blame for her misfortunes. Ma’s hope lies in her two children. She worships her son, Joseph, and...
[The entire page is 618 words long]
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
Navigate
See Also
