In a Childs Eye: A Review of Le Clezios Wandering Star - Thesis Example

In a Child’s Eye: A Review of Le Clezio’s Wandering Star Introduction J.M.G. Le Clezio’s Wandering Star is a vivid narrative of human suffering and triumph in the midst of the violence and devastations. The historical novel is extraordinary due to the accurate and reminiscent essence of the work, the details and harmony of the narrative structure, the enormity and importance of the issue, but also due to the standing and the path of the main character, Esther, who witnesses and suffers from the Holocaust just to be faced with another misfortune in her envisioned native soil. The novel narrates two separate tales of a Jewish girl and a Palestinian girl, who cross paths on one occasion accidentally. Their tales are linked by experience, not by the environment. The two young girls are a wandering star in pursuit for a place of refuge. However, despite of the human misery and painful experiences, optimism radiates as the protagonists stumble upon the splendor of nature and presence of human affection and compassion. Tracing the Journey of Esther and Nejma The novel introduces Esther as a child, residing in a territory on the boundary between France and Italy. Italy has fallen, and the Nazis are progressing. Every Jew in the community, including herself and her mother, should travel to Italy to evade the advancing Germans. Esther and her mother started their passage to France after the war, to a passenger ship which will transport them to Israel. Their journey’s primary purpose is to evade state armies, specifically, those of France, Germany, and Italy, and, ultimately, the forces of England guarding the Mediterranean and obstructing the ingress into Israel. Hence Esther and her mother, because of their movement from place to place, become the classic epitome of the wandering star, or, in Le Clezio’s insight, those people persistently moving to evade persecution. In spite of the obvious cruelty, the narrative has serenity to it: the spiritual practices performed in flight. The physical terrain of the protagonists’ journey throughout the novel is captured in this one simple passage (Le Clezio, Dickson & Gopnik 2009, 126): Never had Esther seen such a lovely place. Between the rounded masses of rocks, moss spread making a carpet, and a little higher up on the left there was a little sandy beach where the waves of the torrent splashed gentles… the place looked to Esther like the image of paradise. The Children Aside from a vibrant description of the journey of Esther and her mother, Le Clezio successfully showed the misery of the war and the hope of a new beginning in the eyes of the young protagonists. The novel presents some ideas from the point of view of the young girls of living in a society ravaged by war and threatened by violent state forces. Several of the children belong to a Jewish ancestry while others are non-Jewish (Le Clezio et al. 2009). Wandering Star is a heartrending testimony to the image of abandoned, starving, and uneducated children. Esther is innately a child. She finds joy in nature even though pain, suffering, and death linger momentarily held by the armed forces of Italy in Saint Martin-Vesubie. The narrative’s commitment to the abandoned and starved children displays empathy to those innocent people implicated in the violence and aggression. And in recounting the inseparable stories of Esther and Njema, the author goes back to the issue of naïve sufferers he introduced in the war narrative. Due to the fact that Esther has meek power over the important occurrences in her life, Wandering Star is more about her insights, sentiments, and worldviews. For several sections near the conclusion of the story, the narrative changes to the similar perception of Nejma, the Palestinian girl residing in a refugee zone where she painfully tries to survive and achieve an ounce of hope and bliss. Esther, likewise, is a remarkable character, hopeful, curious, witty, audacious, and Le Clezio perfectly portrays her sentiment and personality. She witnesses and endures the miseries of war, unearths the magnificence of her faith, and exists in laudable elegance. Comparing the Wandering Star to the Palestinian Diaspora Palestinians, just like the Jews in Le Clezio’s novel, were also displaced from their communities during the Arab-Israeli War. These displaced people kept a comprehensive memoir of their experiences. The War wiped out communities in Palestinian territories. The Israeli troops attacked the community and slaughtered many civilians. The survivors were gathered and killed mercilessly. No one was spared, even the women, the elderly, and children. Furthermore, a lot more were murdered in the hostility that followed, and several other communities suffered the same doom in the methodical genocide scheme, to capture as many Palestinian territories as possible. Jews in Palestine were hence reduced massively in comparison to the number of Palestinians. What occurred is eradication, devastation, and massive depopulation. Relevantly, just like in Wandering Star, these horrific experiences were recounted by the children. Conclusions Having experienced great and unbearable challenges but survived the absolute atrocity of the Holocaust, Esther has reached her dream place. The fight for independence is ranting and raving in Israel, and it appears that her life will continue to be a cycle of obliteration, but she manages to survive. Yet, so as to successfully build their place of refuge, another group of people, the fellow people of Nejma, is displaced and converted into homeless people themselves, maltreated and singled out not by brutal forces set to fulfill genocide, but by malady and hunger. Although Esther and Nejma meet on one occasion, their twin tales encompass an extraordinary story of the horror of war, and the misfortune and hope of human Diaspora. The historical accuracy of Le Clezio’s novel rests in the reality of Diaspora triggered by massive persecution and maltreatment of certain social or racial groups. The Jews and Palestinians share similar histories of Diaspora, a continuity that Le Clezio inclusively and vividly demonstrated in Wandering Star. Works Cited Le Clezio, J., C. Dickson, & A. Gopnik. Wandering Star. Northwestern University Press, 2009. Read More