Essay Questions

Show how political instability is brought out in Herta Müller’s The Land of Green Plums.

Political instability as a result of war is explicitly brought out in the novel. As a result of the memories of the horrors and revulsions of the second world war, the Nazi regime was substituted by another tyrannical government as a result of the susceptible nature that the Nazi dictatorship had left Romania. Also, the political instability is written in the fate that the characters in the novel experience. The government clearly does not have public support and as such any threats to the system are infiltrated and eliminated as a way of ensuring that there is no threat to this tyranny.

Show how the theme of poverty is brought out in Herta Müller’s The Land of Green Plums.

Beneath the story of the four young individuals that the story follows is the theme of poverty. In particular, poverty is brought out through the presented fact that all of these individuals have escaped from their provinces which are rather impoverished and are looking for better opportunities. In the novel, their struggle to find solace is brought out during their time in Romania. Additionally, because of their poverty, they are unable to fight the totalitarianism and political persecution by the Soviets.