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The Plum Tree


A deeply moving and masterfully written story of human resilience and enduring ...
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Do you think fear of the future made Isaac and Christine's love stronger and more passionate?

Created: 01/19/13

Replies: 7

Posted Jan. 19, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert

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Do you think fear of the future made Isaac and Christine's love stronger and more passionate?

Do you think fear of the future made Isaac and Christine's love stronger and more passionate?


Posted Jan. 22, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
laurap

Join Date: 06/19/12

Posts: 401

RE: Do you think fear of the future made Isaac and Christine's love stronger and more passionate?

The reasons for the intensity of the relationship between Isaac and Christine were never clear to me. At the beginning of the book the relationship appeared to be mostly an adolescent crush - there was even talk of another girlfriend whom Isaac dismissed as a family fix-up. Then suddenly, when Mutti told Christine she could no longer work for Isaac's parents, the relationship, with no further contact, seemed to become very intense, especially to Christine, and remained so in spite of a long separation. I wish the author had devoted more attention to the reasons for this intensity. I suppose fear could have been part of it, but the theme was not well explored.


Posted Jan. 22, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
laurap

Join Date: 06/19/12

Posts: 401

RE: Do you think fear of the future made Isaac and Christine's love stronger and more passionate?

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Posted Jan. 22, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
guntak

Join Date: 10/20/10

Posts: 23

RE: Do you think fear of the future made Isaac and Christine's love stronger and more passionate?

No, they were truly not "plugged" into the future. They each came from a different socio-economic background therefore from two different walks of life. They were not aware, as so many others in the village were not, that their lives would drastically change for the much worse and shortly their very lives were to be in jeopardy from the new political regime. They were two young people who had fallen in love, for the first time. Their values and goals in life made them as committed to each other as they were.


Posted Jan. 30, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
peg

Join Date: 08/11/11

Posts: 29

RE: Do you think fear of the future made Isaac and Christine's love stronger and more passionate?

Perhaps the intensity of the relationship was powered by the Impossibility of it.


Posted Feb. 13, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
mariannes

Join Date: 12/17/12

Posts: 206

RE: Do you think fear of the future made Isaac and Christine's love stronger and more passionate?

Yes, I think that strong emotion in one area leads to strong emotions in other areas. Their feelings were already running high from fear and it intensified their passion. Their fear and insecurity naturally made them want something to cling to, like each other.


Posted Feb. 13, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
llsmill

Join Date: 02/13/13

Posts: 38

RE: Do you think fear of the future made Isaac and Christine's love stronger and more passionate?

At the beginning when they were on their walk, she had always had a secret crush on Isaac but on that day he kissed her and told her that he was in love with her. He said he had a girlfriend but that it was a family fix up. When they were in the potato cellar when they met after they were to be asleep and not to see each other anymore, Christine at that point became very desperate and even offered her body to him, but he told her no that they would somehow see each other again and they would wait. When she rescued him and hid him in the attack she wanted more then but knew that she couldn't have more for fear of being discovered. At the end after everything was over and they were married, I noticed that the author took it in the direction that they could not stop touching each other. They must have had premarital sex because when they went back to help the US troops hold trial and testify against them, they eloped on their way home and they had just arrived at her parents home and they were having a special dinner for them and the family was waiting and they were alone and Christine said that her mother still wanted them to have the wedding in the church and he touched her stomach and they talked about the unborn child coming and the hope. So sometime between going back to Dachau to testify after their night mission for the US troops and dropping a letter with Christine's parents to let them know she was alive and where she was and then coming back months later eloping on the way home and having her mother want a wedding, their was a baby conceived. I think their love was stronger through the trials they went through, although Isaac said about he knew they would be together and that thoughts of her were keeping him alive. When she saw him marched off and the gun shots rang out I think she gave up at that point.


Posted Feb. 13, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
rebajane

Join Date: 04/21/11

Posts: 320

RE: Do you think fear of the future made Isaac and Christine's love stronger and more passionate?

It would be interesting to follow up on these two. Severe hardship and tragedy can throw two people together and it looks and feels like love but it doesn't necessarily hold up. I would love to look in on them many years down the road


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