AQA 7711-2 ENGLISH LITERATUREA-AS LEVEL PAPER 2 MAY23-Paper 2 Love through the ages: Prose

0 1 Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman was published in 2007. In this extract the narrator, a young man called Elio, is talking with his father. Elio has met and had a summer romance with Oliver, who has stayed with Elio’s family in Italy while studying. Oliver has now returned to his home in America. Examine the view that Aciman presents the father as dominating and intrusive when giving advice to his son. Make close reference to the writer’s methods in your answer. [25 marks] He was about to tap his cigarette and, in leaning toward the ashtray, he reached out and touched my hand. “What lies ahead is going to be very difficult,” he started to say, altering his voice. His tone said: We don’t have to speak about it, but let’s not pretend we don’t know what I’m saying. Speaking abstractly was the only way to speak the truth to him. “Fear not. It will come. At least I hope it does. And when you least expect it. Nature has cunning ways of finding our weakest spot. Just remember: I am here. Right now you may not want to feel anything. Perhaps you never wished to feel anything. And perhaps it’s not with me that you’ll want to speak about these things. But feel something you did.” I looked at him. This was the moment when I should lie and tell him he was totally off course. I was about to. “Look,” he interrupted. “You had a beautiful friendship. Maybe more than a friendship. And I envy you. In my place, most parents would hope the whole thing goes away, or pray that their sons land on their feet soon enough. But I am not such a parent. In your place, if there is pain, nurse it, and if there is a flame, don’t snuff it out, don’t be brutal with it. Withdrawal can be a terrible thing when it keeps us awake at night, and watching others forget us sooner than we’d want to be forgotten is no better. We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster than we should that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. But to feel nothing so as not to feel anything—what a waste!” I couldn’t begin to take all this in. I was dumbstruck. “Have I spoken out of turn?” he asked. I shook my head. “Then let me say one more thing. It will clear the air. I may have come close, but I never had what you had. Something always held me back or stood in the way. How you live your life is your business. But remember, our hearts and our bodies are given to us only once. Most of us can’t help but live as though we’ve got two lives to live, one is the mockup, the other the finished version, and then there are all those versions in between. But there’s only one, and before you know it, your heart is worn out, and, as for your body, there comes a point when no one looks at it, much less wants to come near it. Right now there’s sorrow. I don’t envy the pain. But I envy you the pain.”