Road to Chlifa Essay Questions

How does Marineau explore the concept of "survivor's guilt" in The Road to Chlifa?

Survivor's guilt is one of The Road to Chlifa's major themes. Karim suffers from the condition, which manifests as a persistent mental and emotional stress Karim experiences for having survived while Maha and Nada and countless others died in the Lebanese Civil War. In Part I, the class perceives Karim to be icy and mysterious; in his diaries, he says that he not only hates school but "hates this life." While he may appear to be nothing more than a sulky, pretentious teenager, in hindsight the reader understands that the weight of knowing he has lived while Nada, Maha, and her family have died eats at him from inside. As a parallel, it becomes evident in Part II that Maha is also suffering from survivor's guilt. She doesn't understand why she lived while her sister—the more beautiful and admired of the two—died. By the end of the novel, Karim commits himself to studying to become a doctor, believing he can go back to Lebanon to help rebuild. In this way, he overcomes his guilt by making use of his survival and committing himself to helping others.

Why do you think the author narrated The Road to Chlifa from three different perspectives? What effect does this choice have?

The Road to Chlifa is narrated from the perspectives of an unnamed classmate of Karim's, Karim himself (through his diary), and by an unnamed third-person omniscient narrator. In choosing to have a multiplicity of narrative perspectives, Michèle Marineau uses form to emphasize the novel's thematic preoccupation with the importance of seeing life from a variety of perspectives. Were the book told only from the classmate's perspective, Karim's internal world would be just as much of a mystery to the reader as it is to Karim's classmates. In including both perspectives in Parts I and II, Marineau contrasts Karim's attitude with the classmate's, showing how their mutual ignorance and narrow-mindedness results in conflict. The benefit of using a third-person narrator in the third section is that the narrator can digress to explain to the reader some of the historical context of the Lebanese Civil War, which to Karim is either commonplace or unknown. This third-person narrator also has a better perspective on Karim's behavior than he does himself. Ultimately, the different perspectives included in the story's telling help underscore how life appears different through every individual lens.

What role does "trauma" play in The Road to Chlifa?

In The Road to Chlifa, trauma plays a central role in Karim's character development. Early in the book, Karim is closed off to social interaction with his parents and friends; in his letters to Béchir, Karim strikes a hopelessly negative and hateful tone. Karim's sulky, disaffected manner erupts in a flurry of violence when Karim attacks Dave to save My-Lan, going beyond necessary defense through repeated punching, as if possessed. These character traits later prove to be symptoms of Karim's undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder. Having gone through the shock of leaving his home city and losing Nada and Maha, Karim is mentally and emotionally overwhelmed, and thus unable to engage positively with his new life in Canada. By the end of the book, Karim begins to recover from his trauma by excavating his memories of the past, embracing life in the present by making new friends, and committing himself to thinking positively about the future.

During the ski trip, Karim's classmate Pascale says, "Those big blocks don't exist. What does exist are unique individuals who shouldn't be judged before you get to know them." What is the context and significance of her statement? How does it resonate with the novel's themes?

After Robert, the French teacher, asks students from other countries to discuss their experiences of coming to Canada, Pascale goes on a long and frustrated monologue about the racial prejudice she has encountered in Quebec. As a Haitian, she is asked about the best beaches in Haiti, or about voodoo. She advocates for seeing people as individuals with unique personalities and not simply as members of blocks of people who all think and act in the same way, stating that she "demand[s] the right to be me and not some curiosity or ethnic specimen." Pascale would like to be seen as an individual, not as a member of a demographic. In this way, Pascale directly addresses the novel's thematic preoccupation with racial stereotypes and the importance of seeing life from a variety of perspectives.

Why is it significant that Karim has a "look of hatred" when My-Lan makes a snow angel during the ski trip?

During the ski trip, the classmate narrator remarks on how she sees Karim smile for the first time when he glides on his skis, and how, in contrast, he has a look of hatred as he watches My-Lan lie on her back and wave her arms in the snow. The significance of this passage does not become clear until late in Part II, when, while hiking toward the peaks of Mount Lebanon, Maha and Karim talk about how they've never felt snow. Maha dreams of making a snow angel, something she's seen on television. Because of this, the reader understands that the sight of My-Lan making a snow angel triggers Karim's repressed thoughts about Maha, who died before she had the chance to make a snow angel herself. Thinking about Maha makes Karim recede into himself, and he doesn't take part in the evening discussion around the fire. In this way, Karim's response to My-Lan's snow angel is a subtle way of illustrating how trauma resurfaces unexpectedly and with extreme effects. Karim, by the end of the novel, understands that his irrational contempt for My-Lan was the result of her reminding him of Maha.