Novel's Analysis
(Gabrielle)
Here we are! FINALLY! Indeed, it is time to scream or to cry, depends on you, because we have now completed the overview of the novel. We went through each of the four quarters. We of course made some observations through our quarter's summaries and also added a few images illustrating the feelings that we had associated with each passage. Yet, we still haven't really delved into our reflections, which is why we've dedicated this article to share our final thoughts on the novel. We divided all the topics we wanted to discuss among ourselves to avoid repeating ourselves. In total, 4 sections summarizing our general analysis of the novel are presented.
Also, feel free to leave your own thoughts in the comments!
Lessons learned from the novel: (Mathis)
Money doesn’t make you happy. It was an obsession for Duddy to make money, but in the end, he lost everything. He wanted to make his grandfather proud, but because he betrayed his friendship and the trust his uncle put in him before dying, the old man didn’t want anything from the land. His best friend and love left him for good, and he became a worse person. He became greedy, rude, impatient. In the end, Duddy did get the land and reach his goal, but he wasn’t able to make his family proud like he wished.
The most significant elements from our point of view: (Milie)
The element that was the most significant for me was at the very end of the novel. When Duddy, the main character, finally has his own land, which was his ultimate life goal, and brings his father, his brother and his grandfather there to show them. It was essential for Duddy to show his land to his grandfather because he is the one who put that goal in his mind by saying “a man without a land is nobody.” Therefore, he wanted to show him that he finally was somebody. But the main element was when his grandfather denied his success and did not want a farm for himself there anymore, as the first plan. All because he knew the dishonest way Duddy got the land. He learned earlier all the bad things he did for it. This element it’s significant for me because I believe that when you achieve something in life, no matter what it is, you have to be proud of the prosses maybe even more than the final result itself. If he had done it the right way, he would have been much prouder of himself as everyone else would have been of him.
The main message in our opinion: (Elisabeth)
I think the main message the author wanted to portray is how money and possessions don’t make you happy. No matter how much wealth you have, if you don’t take care of your loved ones and yourself, you are going to end up sad and lonely. During his life, his mantra was “a man without a land is nobody”. Unfortunately, he made all of his life decisions based on that concept resulting in him losing everything. For example, he took Yvette for granted for years and lost her. At the end of the book, he makes another reckless decision of forging his friend’s signature to buy a land and this time he not only loses everyone around him, but also his dignity.
Links between the novel and our society: (Gabrielle)
I believe Duddy’s story is still very relevant to our today’s society. One of the main problems that people of our time have to manage with is the dilemma between family and work, we even gave that dilemma a name, it is called work-family balance. I think that problem is well depicted in the novel as Duddy often makes sacrifices over his friends, family and lover to benefit the pursue of his dream. As he repeats many times in the book, “a man without a land is nobody”. His biggest dream is to acquire a land, but on his journey, he will lose way much than he will gain in the end, and that applied very much to many situations in our society. I will take for example the students that want to become doctors or any profession close to it on the academic requirements side since I am pretty sure this concerns a lot of students right now. “Straight A students” that’s how many called them. Most of those students have a goal in sight, and they would not take their eyes off this goal no matter what. They will willingly ruin their mental health, their physical health too if that is what it takes, as long as they achieve their goal. But in the end, they will come off empty. “YEAH” they have been accepted, but they do not even have the energy anymore to continue, they have lost all their friends in the way because they were always busy studying, they have developed anxiety and are on pills now. So, in the end, in order to achieve their goal, they have lost everything, just like Duddy has lost everyone. Having a balanced life is a struggle that a lot of people still have to face up to this day.
Other important links that I have noticed between the book and our society is the higher status accord to higher studies jobs. For example, Lennie becoming a doctor is very valorized in the book and it goes the same way in our today’s society: being a doctor brings a lot of prestige. Also, during the whole story, they are many references to the consequences of the anti-Semitic movements. The racial injustices were frequent back then and years later they still are. I believe it is a shame that certain people still have to deal with those racial prejudices every day. It is a shame that we still have not evolved from there and that we still feel the need to categorize people. I will take for example the situation of the black people, many of them have to stand up for themselves, for their rights and against discrimination just like the Jews had to in the book.
https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2020/09/the-economic-cost-of-racism-losavio.htmFinally, the power of money. In the book, some people live for the system like Duddy’s father, Max. And some people live with the system like Mr. Cohen, who did pretty well in life considering the fact that he is a Jew. Finally, there are people like Mr. Colder, who live above the system, they have come to a point where they own so much money that they can almost do everything they want. The thing is, those people cannot really overcome the class they have been put in, they are assigned to it for their whole life. I have found out that it works pretty much the same in our time, you can do great at life and earn a very decent amount of money, you can also succeed in your studies and become an important figure of the society but there will always be this one category of people, they are just born rich. No matter how intelligent you are or how hard you work you will never overcome them. Duddy tried to be one of those people, he did own his land but with nothing left, except an empty heart.
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