blow up assignment

1. Contrast of actual events vs. what Michel thinks

2. a) "All this was so clear, ten feet away-and we were alone against the parapet at the tip of the island" (119).
"...unless he...would rouse himself to put his arm around her waist and to kiss her. Any of this could have happened, though it did not, and perversely Michel waited..." (122).
The contrast here is that Michel creates this fake situation when in fact the boy and the woman are just ten feet in front of him doing nothing of what he is talking about.

b) "I imagined the possible endings...I saw their arrival at the house...Closing my eyes, if I did in fact close my eyes, I set the scene: the teasing kisses" (123).
Again, the same quotation from 119 can be applied because the couple is still on the island, they have not left, Michel just imagines that they do so.

c) "Every few minutes, for example when I was unable to find the way to say in good French what Jose Norberto Allende was saying in very good Spanish, I raised my eyes and looked at the photo" (127).
"I had just translated...when I saw the woman's hand beginning to stir slowly, finger by finger" (128).
The contrast here is that Michel is translating a Spanish text into French and when he takes a break, he imagines the woman and her situation back on the island.

3. Through the character of Michel in Julio Cortazar's "Blow-Up", the separation of reality and imagination is blurred.