How do imperialist repression or anti-imperialist mobilization affect relations between members of a single family or between other families and groups?

Discuss the role of families (parents, siblings, spouses, prospective spouses, children) in the imperialist or anti-imperialist context of the novels by Marguerite Duras and Duong Thu Huong that we read for class. More importantly, discuss the relative significance of families to the chief protagonist-narrators of those novels, i.e., to the unnamed narrator of The Lover (who seems to be Duras herself) and to Quan in Novel Without a Name. How are families used in each novel as an index of the wider social problems of imperial domination or conflict? How do imperialist repression or anti-imperialist mobilization affect relations between members of a single family or between other families and groups? In your discussion, please also try to link the theme of the family with the problem of gender relations in the novel. Why is the intimacy that typically leads to the creation of families always the focus of social disapproval, surveillance, or control?