![]() She then admitted to writing this report out of shame for her illiteracy. Hanna first denied it, but the judge wanted to bring and expert to compare her handwriting to the one on the report. Michael always asked himself the question: “If Hanna’s motive was fear of exposure, why opt for the horrible exposure as a criminal over the harmless exposure as an illiterate”? (133) During the trial Hanna was accused of writing a report stating that she, among other guards in the camps, intentionally kept the doors of a burning church locked, while there were prisoners inside. Perhaps the most tragic example in the book is Hanna’s shame of being illiterate. After she committed suicide, Michael often blamed himself for Hanna’s death. Because he didn’t act, Hanna was sentenced to life in prison. He was even more ashamed of admitting to the judge that he once had a relationship with Hanna. He did not want the judge to see him trying to help someone who had been involved in any way with the concentration camps. He could have saved Hanna from a long prison sentence, but chose not to act. (134) The guilt always haunted him on the inside, but the shame was the one that did not let Michael tell the judge. He felt guilty and was also ashamed “of having loved a criminal”. Michael knew that Hanna could not have written the report, yet he did not tell the judge. His feelings of guilt ruined his marriage.ĭuring Hanna’s trial many of the atrocities that occurred in Auschwitz surfaced. He felt that he cheated his daughter of her rights by getting divorced. It later tormented Michael that he deprived his daughter from the warmth and safety that she needed. He divorced his wife when his daughter was five years old. (173) He felt so guilty that he chose to end his relationship with his wife, rather than trying to work things out or at least explain things to his wife. He could not stop “comparing the way it was with Gertrud, and the way it had been with Hanna”. Michael got married and had a daughter, yet he was not able to hold on to this marriage very long because of his own guilt. He also struggled with his relationships because he tried very hard not to get emotionally involved, out of fear of being hurt, or even worse, hurting the other person. For years after Hanna’s disappearance, Michael blamed himself for Hanna leaving. Why hadn’t I jumped up immediately when she stood there and run to her!” (83) Michael later said. The day after this event, Hanna disappeared “Even worse than my physical desire, was my sense of guilt. He was not sure if she wanted to be seen with him, or if he wanted to be seen with her for that matter, so he did nothing. This left Michael, even after his father’s death, with the feeling that he was not properly taken care of by his father.Īt one point in the story, Michael was at the pool with his friends, when he saw Hanna looking at him from a distance. (139) Even though he was a philosophy professor who dealt with moral issues on a daily basis, Michael’s father, like many parents at the time, did not feel like he had any moral authority over his children. Michael’s father was “…undemonstrative, and could neither share his feelings with us children, not could he deal with the feeling we had for him”. (92) This shame prevented Michael’s father from ever creating a true bond with his children. Michael Berg explains how young people reacted to their parents as more and more was being discovered about Nazi atrocities by saying, “We all condemned our parents to shame, even if the only charge we could bring was that after 1945 they had tolerated the perpetrators in their mist”. The fifth, and possibly the most tragic example in the book is Hanna’s own shame of being illiterate.ĭuring the time when the book was set, many parents lived in shame for tolerating the actions of the Nazi regime. The fourth is Michael’s shame for having been in love with Hanna. The third example is the guilt that Michael feels for comparing his wife to Hanna. The second is Michael’s feelings of guilt for “betraying” Hanna by not acknowledging her at the pool. One of the first major examples is the shame that many adults, including Michael’s father, felt because of their tolerance and acceptance of the Nazi regime. Examples of them can be found throughout the whole book. Bernhard Schlink is trying to portray these two emotions in his book as things that can destroy one’s life, and possibly the life of those around us. ![]() ![]() Their feelings of guilt and shame lead to Hanna’s tragic death near the end of the story. When Michael next sees Hanna, he is a young law student and she is on trial for her work in the Auschwitz concentration camp. “The Reader”, by Bernhard Schlink is set in postwar Germany and tells the story of fifteen-year-old Michael Berg and his affair with a woman named Hanna, who was twice his age.
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