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Flashbacks
Key Examples in O Pioneers!
Part 2, Chapter 5
Explanation and Analysis—Alexandra and Carl:
Alexandra and Carl are foils. While Carl is highly perceptive about people and naive about the land, Alexandra is the opposite. In Part 3, Chapter 2, for instance, the narrator describes Alexandra's "blind side:"
If Alexandra had had much imagination she might have guessed what was going on in Marie’s mind, and she would have seen long before what was going on in Emil’s. But that, as Emil himself had more than once reflected, was Alexandra’s blind side, and her life had not been of the kind to sharpen her vision.
Related Themes:
Part 2, Chapter 9
Explanation and Analysis—Emil and Amédée:
Emil and Amédée are foils. In Part 2, Chapter 9, Emil considers the similarities and differences in their love lives via a simile:
Unlock with LitCharts A+It seemed strange that now he should have to hide the thing that Amédée was so proud of, that the feeling which gave one of them such happiness should bring the other such despair. It was like that when Alexandra tested her seed-corn in the spring, he mused. From two ears that had grown side by side, the grains of one shot up joyfully into the light, projecting themselves into the future, and the grains from the other lay still in the earth and rotted; and nobody knew why.
Related Themes:
Part 3, Chapter 2
Explanation and Analysis—Alexandra and Carl:
Alexandra and Carl are foils. While Carl is highly perceptive about people and naive about the land, Alexandra is the opposite. In Part 3, Chapter 2, for instance, the narrator describes Alexandra's "blind side:"
Unlock with LitCharts A+If Alexandra had had much imagination she might have guessed what was going on in Marie’s mind, and she would have seen long before what was going on in Emil’s. But that, as Emil himself had more than once reflected, was Alexandra’s blind side, and her life had not been of the kind to sharpen her vision.
Related Themes:
