YEAR 12 DP LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE PAPER 2 – THE READER MODELLING THE ESSAY PART 3 OUTCOMES (Keep these in mind all the time while completing this task) Consider the changing historical, cultural and social contexts in which particular texts are written and received Demonstrate how form, structure and style can not only be seen to influence meaning but can also be influenced by context Understand the attitudes ad values expressed by literary texts and their impact on readers The Question: It has been said that history ‘cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.’ To what extent does The Reader face history in order to ensure that its wrongs need not be lived again? Note: In the real Paper 2 your text will not be named in this way and you will be required to write on TWO of your texts. THE PLAN THESIS: Schlink had the choice of recording second generation German responses to the sins of their fathers as including blame, denial and indifference but by choosing to implicate Michael in the crime, he succeeds in giving us a character who faces his history with courage. Points: On large scale novel is about post generational effects of Holocaust On smaller scale one person’s story – this story resonates with readers, is more accessible, results in greater understanding Schlink does present expected responses to the guilt (denial, blame, indifference). These are simplistic, do not involve courage but do convey realism for the reader By implicating Michael, guilt is shared and becomes more powerful. Michael goes through process of denial, reckoning, catharsis As readers we are positioned to sympathise, understand, recognize our own humanity. The novel becomes important then in fostering understanding of history / facing history Language and devices – narration, tone, characterization, motifs (windows… Bernhard Schlink’s The Reader, written in 1995, is by Schlink’s admission, an attempt by a second-generation member of post holocaust Germany to deal with the shame of German history. Schlink says of his novel: “[It] addresses how the generation that came after deals with what the previous generation did.” The power in the novel is derived not from a large-scale account of that ill-fated second generation, but from the story of one boy, Michael Berg. By way of fifteen year old Michael’s love affair with a thirty-six year old Nazi war criminal, Schlink traces Michael’s implication in wrong doing, his denial, his reckoning and his catharsis. Schlink had the choice of recording second generation German responses to the sins of their fathers as including blame, denial and indifference but by choosing to implicate Michael in the crime, he succeeds in giving us a character who faces his history with courage. Michael’s ultimate courage is highlighted by his less courageous responses throughout the novel. Schlink adds realism to his novel by recording Michael’s blame, denial and indifference. These responses reflect Michael’s emotional paralysis in dealing with the truth. Early in the novel, he reflects on his denial as an inability to connect thought and action: “…thinking and doing have either come together or failed to come together.” When he visits Struthof concentration camp, he experiences a “great emptiness” and his indifference is conveyed through his need to find somewhere to eat lunch after the visit, as though it has had little impact on him. Denial and indifference come together when he encounters Hanna in the courtroom: “I recognized her but I felt nothing. Nothing at all.” Schlink is attempting to show us a second hand response to guilt through Michael’s denial and indifference. As a legal student, Michael participates in blaming: “We tore open the windows and let in the air, the wind that finally whirled away the dust that society had permitted to settle over the horror of the past.” Schlink uses windows to alternately hide and reveal as a motif throughout the novel. Hanna’s apartment has “no window” and “not much light”, foreshadowing the idea that it becomes the site of Michael’s moral entrapment. In Michael’s classroom where he sits next to Sophie and has the opportunity to function like a normal teenager, the windows, representing hope and a future, occupy one wall “looking…down at streets, the river and the meadows…” In his desperation to find some peace to his moral torment over whether he should reveal Hanna’s illiteracy to the judge, Michael visits his Philosopher father in whose study: “the windows did not open the room to the world beyond, but framed and hung the world in it like a picture.” Schlink’s description of Michael’s father’s study conveys a claustrophobic self-absorption, much like the father himself, who cannot open himself up to Michael. Michael’s experiences with indifference, denial and rejection are honest but simplistic interpretations of facing history. As readers, we are positioned to see him as human, but not courageous. Schlink does more than to just present us with an alternately angry and indifferent character. By implicating Michael in Hanna’s crime, Schlink invites us to understand the intensely personal response of second generation Germans to the crimes of their fathers. It takes much more courage to share the guilt than to attribute blame. Michael is conscious of his guilt from the outset. The use of first person narration confers a confessional tone. He enters enthusiastically into the fateful love affair with Hanna: “I was happy. And at the same time, I felt I’d just said my final goodbyes.” As readers, we sympathise with Michael. At fifteen he is vulnerable. As an adult his memory is unclear, casting an unreliability to his narrative voice: “I don’t remember…nor do I remember.” At all times we see him as human and forgive him. This fosters an understanding that those involved in the holocaust, either directly or by implication were individuals with human failings. Schlink is at pains to point out that The Reader does not seek to condone or forgive. However, it does achieve a measure of understanding as to how these things happened. This is how we receive the text in today’s world. There is more to be gained from understanding than blaming where history is concerned. Ideas to continue: The construction of Hanna’s character. Does she function the same way? Elicit the same sympathy? What is achieved The process of reckoning both Michael and Hanna go through at the trial / the moral dilemma / the truth The catharsis / coming to terms / dealing with the past How all points add up to facing history with courage… Deal with stylistic features and language devices as you progress
