Explain the figurative language in the following quotation from paragraph 23. What is the purpose of this comparison? “For that day Monsieur Hamel had prepared some entirely new examples, on which was written in a fine, round hand: ‘France, Alsace, France, Alsace.’ They were like little flags, waving all about the class, hanging from the rods of our desks.”

The words ‘France, Alsace, France, Alsace’ represent Monsieur Hamel's patriotism and his love for France. The little boy Franz compares the papers with these words to flags representing France's and Alsace's freedom.

Explanation:

The Last Lesson – The Story of a Little Alsatian, by Alphonse Daudet is set at the time of the Franco-Prussian war. Alsace, reclaimed from Germany by France in the WW1, is a disputed territory between the two countries.

The Last Lesson narrates the story of an Alsatian boy, Franz, who is overwhelmed by his teacher, Mr. Hamel's patriotism. Monsieur Hamel, who has been teaching French at Franz's school for twenty years, announces that orders from Berlin have banned French. Monsieur Hamel hands out a writing assignment to the children with the words, ‘France, Alsace, France, Alsace’ written on them. Later, while bidding farewell, Monsieur is too emotional to express his feelings so he writes Viva La France i.e. Long Live France on the board.

word count 168

serve the people! ,” smoothly translated by julia lovell, offers an initial sample of yan lianke’s writing to an english-speaking audience. a bluntly drawn, mildly erotic fable, it teases mao zedong by poking fun at a true believer who obeys the chairman’s precepts too literally. to a western sensibility, the broad strokes of yan lianke’s humor would seem to pose little risk of inciting rebellion, whether of the flesh or of the body politic. but then, part of the book’s attraction is that it doesn’t have a western sensibility. it lets the reader see — or rather, intuit — what jokes chinese officials don’t consider funny, and how very little it takes for a writer to be branded an incendiary in 21st-century china, more than three decades after the death of mao, a decade after the death of deng xiaoping and seven years since china entered the world trade organization, a move that would seem to signal a willingness (however wary) to mingle with the rest of the world.