Broken April Essay Questions

In Broken April, Kadaré frequently foreshadows impending events in the plot. Focus on one example and explain its significance using direct references to the text.

An answer to this question could focus on one of two main foreshadowed events in the novel: Gjorg’s death and the demise of Bessian and Diana’s marriage. There is ample evidence throughout the novel that Gjorg will die and the key part of this question is to find, and quote, direct examples. For example, Kadaré writes that at Zef’s funeral feast, “Gjorg thought about his own funeral feast” (17). Later, Gjorg thinks of his deceased fiancée and reasons that “it was better for her that she had gone first to where he would soon overtake her” (28). In short, it is made clear that Gjorg will soon die.

One could interpret this aspect of the novel variously. In a sense, it creates a sense of inevitability in that nothing Gjorg can do will change his fate. The reader is thus entirely powerless but to read on as Gjorg’s death nears. This allows Kadaré to explore the psyche of a man who knows he is going to die.

The other major foreshadowed event in the novel is the demise of Bessian and Diana’s marriage. Here, the reader will have to notice more subtle features in the chapters following these two characters. For example, as Diana and Bessian ride into the High Plateau in their carriage, Kadaré writes that “the wasteland…was ready to engulf in a moment not just her own store of happiness but perhaps the heaped-up joy of whole generations” (67). During their first night staying in the High Plateau, Diana is unable to sleep and, thinking of Bessian, questions “‘why did you bring me here?’” and thinks that “this is torture” (90). Over the course of the novel, these small tensions rupture into an irreparable gap between the newly married couple.

Foreshadowing the drastic change in the relationship between Diana and Bessian, Kadaré is able to create a sense of anticipation. It is clear that something momentous is going to happen during the trip, but it is not clear what. In this way, Kadaré also highlights the fact that the couple is fundamentally mismatched. He suggests that even if they did not go on this trip, and Gjorg and Diana never laid eyes on each other, Diana and Bessian would still fall out of love with one another.

Describe the significance and impact of Kadaré’s depiction of the nature and geography in which the novel is set.

Kadaré is a brilliantly vivid writer of nature and geography, and an answer to this question could provide ample evidence of this fact within the novel. It is important to highlight how Kadaré uses the natural setting to emphasize the tone and mood of the narrative. For example, at the beginning of the second chapter, Gjorg notices a “line of mountains veiled in mist, and through the veil he thought he saw the pale reflection, multiplied as if in a mirage, of a single great mountain rather than a range of real peaks differing in height” (25).

Emphasizing the fog and mist, Kadaré creates a sense of mystery, intrigue and even mysticism. The high mountain peaks also create the image of a place cut off the outside world. Likewise, by referring to “a mirage,” Kadaré suggests that the High Plateau is a region in which things may be deceptive and not as they appear. This is just one example of how Kadaré uses the natural settings to create a mood in the novel. The point is that each description of nature has significance beyond the description itself.

The blood feuds play a prominent role in the novel. How does Kadaré portray these blood feuds? Is he critical or supportive of their continuation?

The answer to this question will depend on the reader’s own interpretation. So long as evidence is referenced from the text, several different arguments are viable. On one hand, Kadaré is highly critical of the blood feuds. In a sense, the whole novel, and its detailed portrayal of Gjorg, is a means of demonstrating just how senseless and destructive the feuds are. Kadaré shows that Gjorg did not want to kill Zef and deeply regrets that his family was ever forced into the blood feud.

Strong evidence for Kadaré’s stance about the blood feuds can also be found in the characterization of Mark Ukacierra. By far, Mark is the most evil and vile character in the novel. Through Mark, Kadaré makes the case that, as scholars Pali and Mackay argue, the blood “constitutes an important profitable industry for the ruling family who collect the blood tax” (172). In this way, the rural people are being exploited for the financial gain of the ruling class. Thus, it is clear that Kadaré is critical of the blood feuds.

At the same time, Kadaré makes the case that there is some perceived value in the blood feuds according to those who participate in them. Indeed, Gjorg believes that the close proximity to death created by the blood feuds allows one to learn “the value of life” (34). So, while he dreads the approach of his death he also feels “vulnerable, sensitive to everything, so that he might rejoice in anything, be cast down to anything, small or large, a butterfly, a leaf, boundless snow, or the depressing rain falling on that very day” (34).

Of course, this is not enough to justify the murder that Gjorg has just committed. At the same time, Kadaré is attempting to explain the attraction that the blood feuds might hold for some. Thus, a balanced answer to this question would acknowledge that Kadaré is critical of the blood feuds while also acknowledging that some may find an unusual sense of value in them.

Identity and explain the significance of one symbol in the novel.

Broken April is a richly symbolic novel so there are many options to choose from. For example, one could write about the bloodstained shirt that hangs outside of the kulla of the family of each man who has been killed in a blood feud. The shirt serves as a reminder that vengeance must be delivered after which point, the shirt is finally washed. One could argue that the broader significance of this ritual is the fact that many in that High Plateau believe that vengeance killing is somehow an act of purification or cleansing; a belief that Kadaré criticizes.

Another potent symbol is the black ribbons that are worn on the sleeves of those who have killed someone in a blood feud. In a sense, the ribbons mark these men for death, as they will soon be targeted for vengeance from the other feuding family. The symbol marks the fact that men like Gjorg have been selected for killing, and therefore dying, through no volition of their own. In a sense, the ribbon strips them of any agency they might have except to accept their fate of likely death. In another way, the armbands also serve as a reminder of the prominence of the blood feuds to all those in the High Plateau. Indeed, it is all but impossible to forget the blood feuds with so many men walking around with ribbons on their sleeves.

There are a number of other viable symbols in the novel. The key is to select one and make a case for its deeper meaning.

Kadaré never indicates precisely in which year the novel takes place. What evidence from the novel could be used to determine a rough date in which the events of the novel occur, and why might Kadaré have left the timing of the novel ambiguous?

Throughout the novel, Kadaré fosters the sense that the people of the High Plateau belong to an older, more traditional time. To the reader, it might appear at first that the novel occurs as long ago as the Medieval period. Yet Kadaré subtly includes information that dates the events of the novel to the early 20th century. For example, at one point Gjorg sees an airplane flying overhead and Diana mentions a death "in slow motion as if in a film" (115). Kadaré intentionally creates this disorienting juxtaposition between the traditional rural culture of the High Plateau and modernity. One could argue that he does this in order to demonstrate that modernity is not a standardized, universalized process but that there are still places like the High Plateau where ancient customs dictate the local way of life.