Modiano Hero's Journey

In 1988 Patrick Modiano came across an ad in the newspaper "Missing, a young girl, Dora Bruder, age 15, height 1 m 55, oval-shaped face, gray-brown eyes, gray sports jacket, maroon pullover, navy blue skirt and hat, brown gym shoes." (Modiano 3). The ad was put in the paper by Dora’s parents after she had ran away from her private boarding school; that her parents sent her off to. Modiano chose to follow Dora Bruder from place to place for several different reasons. One main reason is because he wanted to answer the question on why she would want to run from the people helping her hide. She had to hide from getting taken to the Nazi concentration camps. He encounters many different obstacles on his quest on trying to follow her steps and find out what happened to Dora. One obstacle he faces is when he is trying to get more information on

She was sent away to this school to go into hiding just like Dora and was later sent back after she had gotten sick. In these times people had to go as far as sending their kids off to protect them. Meanwhile, on this journey of retracing her steps, he realizes that he is also going on the journey of his past as well. During this long investigation he keeps having flash backs of things he has done in the past as a kid realizing that he lived a similar path to Dora. For example, when he first sees the old newspaper ad, he explains how he is very familiar with the area of Ornano, Paris. He explains how he used to go to flea markets with his mother as a child. Therefore, throughout this investigation he realizes how close he was to everything that was going on with Dora and everyone else at this time and the struggles they were going through. All of this comes to realization to him when he finds out that he finally knows who lived in the house on 41 Boulevard Ornano, Paris next to the cinema lived Dora Bruder and the rest of her