Do you think that Giono’s efforts to make Bouffier seem like a real individual undercut or reinforce the message of hope at the heart of the story? Does the story lose some of its inspiring qualities when one learns that Bouffier is a fictional character?

How does Giono convey the trauma the narrator experienced during World War I and the Battle of Verdun? How does the story benefit from the author’s “less is more” approach toward depicting the narrator’s inner life?

Place the story in the context of the postwar modernist movement. How do Giono’s themes and techniques differ from the ones found in works like T. S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland”? How are they similar?