Malraux's robust, terse style is peppered with newspaper headlines and radio broadcasts that heighten the story's dramatic impact and help to create the illusion that, what one is reading, has truly taken place. Frequently, he juxtaposes a series of concise, dynamic scenes, reminiscent of the flashback and flash-forward techniques employed in the cinema. Closeup depictions of events are followed by gradual fade-aways, to be followed by other close-ups, then fade-aways and closeups again. This constant changing of focus helps to subordinate the external events to the conflict within. Emphasis shifts from the historical to the metaphysical, and the reader begins to see that the sociopolitical struggle described so dramatically by Malraux is only a reflection of the hero's inner turmoil, who is himself but a symbol of Modern Man.