The land of green plums, by Herta Müller, is a novel undoubtedly as defined by its language as by its content. There are many interpretations of Müller's literary style, and one of the most compelling is that it serves to show the reader how vicarious and isolating life under a totalitarian regime must be; feelings cannot be openly discussed and most people live in constant fear. A technique used by Müller to heighten this effect is to use complex and seemingly disparate images with which scenes and events are described; not only do the comparisons seem inscrutable at first, but they also make it difficult to determine whether a plot point actually happened or was just an unusual image. Another way that contributes to this is Müller's use of anonymity for almost all the characters; by distancing the reader from the characters themselves, it is difficult to tell who can be trusted and who might be acting out of character. The combination of these techniques maintains a wall of interpretation between the events of the story and the reader; the uncertainty this evokes in the reader echoes life in a country where information is often hidden or transformed. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Although further reading clarifies Müller's imagery, at first the connections are often vague or seemingly absent. For example, Müller mentions “A lost war, an SS man returned from the war, a freshly ironed short-sleeved shirt hanging in the wardrobe…” (p. 14). Although this follows a statement in this paragraph that the father went to war, it is not certain at this point whether he was the SS who returned, nor how relevant the shirt is to to this question. The direct comparison between emotive ideas like the SS and mundane things like an ironed shirt serves to destabilize the reader. Another example of the effects of this disparity of images is the narrator's statement: "There is always a cloud in the city, or just an empty sky" (p. 78). This example shows how Müller can even compare images to each other; the use of the word "always" means that this statement directly contradicts itself. Since the wisps of clouds are allusions to friends, as mentioned in a poem on the same page, the point conveyed here is that a single friend is actually the best people can hope for in the city . Additionally, the narrator's thought that "the words in our mouths do as much damage as our feet do on the grass" (p. 89) is also confusing at first glance. However, knowing that plants in general are often used to represent childhood in this novel – green plums ("They were oversized children." - p.81) and mulberry trees ("I saw a young man ... carrying a bag). , a bag with a mulberry tree in it” – p.4) being examples - this phrase acquires a new meaning: that even the words we speak to ourselves can have as much effect on us as our childhood had. This is also true of life under a dictatorship: simply saying the wrong words can have a huge impact; especially within a regime that manages information with such voracity. The second way in which Müller creates a barrier to understanding between the reader and the characters is by maintaining a certain measure of anonymity for all the characters. The inability to fully connect with many of the book's characters is effective in maintaining an atmosphere of..