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Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres Essay

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Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres

Carlo was fighting for Italy, while Mandras was in the Greek army.
Both of the characters experienced a lot during the war. Nevertheless everything Mandras and Carlo fought on opposite sides. What does it say about the novels moral scheme, that the sufferings of ordinary people on both sides are recounted in detail? Consider these two characters but also other “moral” issues raised in the novel so far.

Mandras and Carlo fought on opposite sides. Their experiences and feelings through out the war are recounted to the readers in a lot of details. And even though they were “enemies”, their stories are very similar, as if the author is talking about the same man. This style of …show more content…

I would not desert him […] he would make me an inspired hero. I would have someone to impress, someone whose admiration would give me that which I cannot give myself; esteem, and honour.” (p. 29). He wants to join the army because he is a homosexual and he wants to be able to love and be loved, or the least to be able to impress someone and get his admiration. At the same time Mandras also wants to join the army, and his reasons come from love as well. He wants to go to war, because this way he feels he will be able to do something important, and thus by the end of it, he would be good enough to marry Pelagia. “I will never be a man until
I’ve done something important, something great, something I can live with, something to be esteemed […] no man is a man until he has been a soldier.” (p. 80). As we can see from the quote, Mandras basically wants to gain the same things by joining the army: esteem and honour.
He wants to impress people by his actions and show that his life is not pointless, that he risked himself in order to defend his country and its people.

The next similarity between the characters is what they have found out about the war, their disappointment and despair. Both of them realised that war is not at all as what they thought it would be. After Carlo and his friend Francesco had their first atrocity, they no longer felt excited by the war. “We felt no triumph. We felt exhausted and

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