Oct 18, · his novel The Reader, Bernhard Schlink provides a unique insight into the complexity of the German equivalent for ‘baby boomers,’ namely the generation that was born in the second half of the s, which are often called “the lucky late-born.” The Reader essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of The Reader by Bernhard Schlink The Definite Generic refers to the Prototype of a species, roughly the image we associate with reader. The reader, as a prototype, has all the properties of anyone we would call a reader, except that they doesn't exist in an individual physical sense, like all real readers do
The Reader Free Essay Sample
Authored by Bernhard Schlink, the reader essay, The Reader is a captivating novel that captures an affair between Michael, a year-old, and Hanna who was more than twenty years old, the reader essay. The masterpiece is set in the s, shortly after the Second World War, the reader essay. The relationship between the two characters is a depiction of the connection between the wartime generation and the post-war generation. The story is divided into three parts, the reader essay.
The affiliation ends because of the abrupt departure of Hanna. These circumstances are not the reader essay for the couple. The final part of the story depicts Michael sending audio correspondence to Hanna, despite the fact that she could not read it. She was awaiting her release. This paper examines the the reader essay, the different themes, and literary elements found in it, the reader essay.
Michael Berg is a fifteen-year-old boy who lives in west Germany in He is recovering from hepatitis. He falls sick on the road one day. He meets Hanna Schmitz who is more than double his age. He later returns to her apartment to thank her. This scenario marks the beginning of an affair, the reader essay. They begin a ritual of making love, showering, and reading books.
With his innocence gone, Michael finds it hard to stay away from her. He starts to skip classes to make love to Hanna. He falls deeply in love with her. She finds out about his missing school and becomes very agitated, insisting that he has to attend all his classes. As much as Michael loves Hanna, she does not love him back. He begins to spend more time with friends and other girls just like a typical teenage boy. He feels guilty of not introducing Hanna to his friends.
His group of friends mostly meets at the pool where Hanna appears one afternoon. Michael does not approach her, the reader essay. Instead, he turns to the other side, only to find her gone. Hanna then leaves and quits her job without telling Michael. This move leaves him with feelings of guilt, wondering whether he drove her away. He spends the reader essay meditating about the life he lived when he was the reader essay her, although the memories fade with time Schlink Michael studies law, but does not get into practice.
Rather, he prefers to become a researcher of legal history. In an academic seminar, he is tasked with hearing criminal cases from the Nazi regime. He is astonished to find Hanna being on trial for killing prisoners in a fire as an SS guard, the reader essay.
Hanna fails to defend herself properly. She bewilders people in the court for her constant self-incrimination. Hanna admits to filing a report that she had denied working on it before. Finally, Michael comes to the realization that Hanna is illiterate and that she is going to great lengths the reader essay hide it.
He is faced with the dilemma of exposing her illiteracy to reduce her sentence Schlink When in prison, the reader essay, Michael reads books on tape-record and sends them to Hanna. Sometimes, he receives a thank you note from her.
Years later, the reader essay, he is informed of her upcoming release since he is her only contact to the outside world. He secures a job and an apartment for her, although he does not directly communicate with her.
On her last night in prison, she hangs herself in her cell. One of the themes depicted in the novel is guilt. An instance where guilt is portrayed is when Hanna quits her job and leaves without informing Michael. He is guilty for acting as if he did not recognize her at the pool. He feels like it is him who drove her away.
Throughout the novel, Hanna seems to have no guilt over any of her actions in general and particularly towards Michael. However, her sense of subconscious guilt is shown through her constant need to do washing and cleaning.
Their schedule has been ritualized into making love, showering, and reading. The showering is emphasized to bring out the theme of guilt. War guilt is an idea that is very prevalent in the novel. The guilt is faced by both the wartime generation and the post-war age group. Michael and Hanna represent the two different generations. He is guilty because of her actions. The numbness felt by Michael and the rest in the trial is a representation of ordinary Germans trying to distance themselves from the actions of the previous generation.
He then suffers a fever that frees him from the numbness. This situation represents the need for the Germans to face the past in order to recover Schlink Another theme represented in the novel is blame. Guilt attracts the need to put the blame on someone. The younger generation blames the older one to absolve itself from guilt. During her trial, Hanna blames her orders to guard the prisoners for making her unable to unlock the burning church.
She fails to show remorse on her part. However, the reader essay is humanized when she finally admits guilt and feels haunted by the victims of the holocaust. The novel seems to communicate the need for Germany to accept the reader essay guilt before it can move on.
Hanna shows cruelty and abuse by making the prisoners read for her. This behavior has prolonged the execution, thus giving prisoners a sense of desperation when reading for her to avoid death.
She also turns violent whenever she feels she is losing control. Therefore, she uses sex to control Michael who is far younger than her Schlink She feels threatened whenever she is confronted with her illiteracy. Her illiteracy also brings out the theme of shame.
In her fear of the reader essay being exposed, she manipulates Michael to make it seem like a romantic gesture. Hanna becomes infuriated and violent when he writes her a note and creeps out to get her a rose the reader essay breakfast because she cannot read. He puts her in a situation where she feels vulnerable. Hanna also fails to defend herself against murder charged in the fear of having her illiteracy unraveled.
Her shame controls her actions in the courtroom. To ensure that her illiteracy is not found out, she admits writing a report that she actually did not develop Schlink Lack of moral awareness has also been predominant in the novel through illiteracy. Since meeting Michael, Hanna has been shown to lack the feeling of guilt, despite her actions confirming that she is remorseful.
Besides seducing an underage boy, she is involved in the murder of the reader essay in a church. Without notice, the reader essay, she also leaves Michael. She makes helpless prisoners read for her Schlink At this point, she is uneducated, the reader essay. However, when the reader essay goes to prison, she begins to learn how to read and write and even sends an appreciation note to Michael.
Due to this newly found knowledge, Hanna begins to show feelings of guilt and facing her actions. Finally, guilt overwhelms her until she hangs herself on her last night in prison. In The Reader, the main character in the text, Michael Berg narrates the story.
Eventually, in the last chapter, the protagonist asserts that he wrote the narrative. The meta-fictional component combined with the authoritative skills creates an artificial sincerity of the content. Through the first person point of view technique, readers can note the sympathetic nature of Michael, particularly how he talks about Hanna.
He becomes isolated, emotionally detached, and egotistic. Moreover, through his narration, it is evident that he is learned, unlike Hanna who is an illiterate Nazi war perpetrator. He portrays the offender, Hanna, as the victim of war since she commits the atrocities due to her illiteracy. Moreover, Michael introduces her as a woman of good personality, hence encouraging the readers to have a positive predisposition of Hanna. The author also uses a language, which is lucid and blunt at crucial parts of the plot, the reader essay, for instance, when introducing a chapter.
The reader essay simple language boosts the substance of his writing. The short chapters also make it easy for readers to follow and understand the plot. The element of metaphor is intense in The reader essay Reader. The use of metaphor is not only artistic but also enables the reader to have a profound insight on the message the writer seeks to communicate.
Reader Response Essay Example ENGL 1301
, time: 20:01word choice - Using "the reader" or "the readers" - Writing Stack Exchange
German Guilt in Bernhard Schlink's The Reader Essay Words7 Pages Every year or so, something happens in the media that brings us all back to the atrocities of World War II, and the German persecution of the Jews. It seems that the horrors of that time can only be digested and understood in small bites Writing style is the way a text is written to portray the author’s message to the audience. The Reader portrays the struggle of post Third Reich generations coming to terms with Nazi war crimes, by effectively using a unique writing style The Reader BY Anne89 n part II, chapter eight of Bernhard Schlink’s The Reader, the first-person narrator Michael describes reading the account written by a concentration camp who had survived along with her mother, the soul survivors in a large group of women who were being marched away from the camp. He says, “the book creates blogger.comted Reading Time: 5 mins
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