DISCUSSION QUESTIONS The Shadow of the Wind |
1. Julián Carax's and Daniel's lives
follow very similar trajectories. Yet one ends in tragedy, the other in
happiness. What similarities are there between the paths they take? What
are the differences that allow Daniel to avoid tragedy?
2. Nuria Monfort tells Daniel, "Julián
once wrote that coincidences are the scars of fate. There are no
coincidences, Daniel. We are the puppets of our unconscious." What does
that mean? What does she refer to in her own experience and in Julián's
life?
3. Nuria Monfort's dying words, meant
for Julián, are, "There are worse prisons than words." What does she
mean by this? What is she referring to?
4. There are many devil figures in the
story-Carax's Laín Coubert, Jacinta's Zacarias, Fermín's Fumero. How
does evil manifest itself in each devil figure? What are the
characteristics of the villains/devils?
5. Discuss the title of the novel. What
is "The Shadow of the Wind"? Where does Zafón refer to it and what does
he use the image to illustrate?
6. Zafón's female characters are often
enigmatic, otherworldly angels full of power and mystery. Clara the
blind white goddess ultimately becomes a fallen angel; Carax credits
sweet Bea with saving his and Daniel's lives; Daniel's mother is
actually an angel whose death renders her so ephemeral that Daniel can't
even remember her face. Do you think Zafón paints his female characters
differently than his male characters? What do the women represent in
Daniel's life? What might the Freud loving Miquel Moliner say about
Daniel's relationships with women?
7. Daniel says of The Shadow of the
Wind, "As it unfolded, the structure of the story began to remind me
of one of those Russian dolls that contain innumerable ever-smaller
dolls within" (p. 7). Zafón's The Shadow of the Wind unfolds much
the same way, with many characters contributing fragments of their own
stories in the first person point of view. What does Zafón illustrate
with this method of storytelling? What do the individual
mini-autobiographies contribute to the tale?
8. The evil Fumero is the only son of a
ridiculed father and a superficial, status-seeking mother. The troubled
Julián is the bastard son of a love-starved musical mother and an
amorous, amoral businessman, though he was raised by a cuckolded
hatmaker. Do you think their personalities are products of nature or
nurture? How are the sins of the fathers and mothers visited upon each
of the characters? |
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