Meaghan Sylver reaction 3

One major idea I pulled from The Reader was that everyone has flaws that are highlighted by society. Even institutions have flaws so not only does everyone have a weakness but so does everything.

Weakness is a topic showcased in this novel. It begins with the weakness of the boy while he is sick. Schlink shows how many people take advantage of an inadequacy and use it to create a better scenario for them. This can be seen when Hanna takes in the boy at the point where he thinks he is feeble and then builds him up to knowing a new life, only to surprise him later on. Another system that shows its weakness is the court. Even though made by the government and therefore expected to be accurate and strong, the court itself has many flaws. Not only are people wrongly accused but also there is a tension present which seems to have an affect on everyone.

Part three brings in a creepier feeling to me and makes me question my feelings about the book. I think this is where the power of manipulation has been most visible all year. Hanna has been able to manipulate the young 15 year old throughout the book and it is clear she has made a lasting impression upon him. Her manipulation was so powerful that it was able to last through not only a long time but through many events.

Alan Armony's Reaction #3

I am happy with the way The Reader ended. Finally, I understand why the book is called the reader. I found it very interesting that Michael only communicated to Hanna through tapes of him reading books. I still am not sure as to why he did that. It could be because he was trying to help her learn how to read while she was in prison, but I think that subconsciously Michael was trying to get back at her for the pain she caused him by mocking her since she cannot read. I never expected Hanna to commit suicide, on the day of her release nonetheless. However, I do understand why she would commit suicide. I think she committed suicide because she really was not a bad person and she couldn’t live with the fact that she had helped so many women go to die in such a bad way. I would have considered suicide if I were in her situation as well. Also, add on the embarrassment she must have felt from being illiterate, depression and suicide are very logical effects. I’m not sure what to think of the woman that Michael visits in the U.S. What does she represent? I think that Schlink added her as a human personification of Michael’s subconscious. This is the first time that Michael is actually able to express what he is thinking, the first time he is able to tell someone about his relationship and feelings toward Hanna. I think that was a good way to end the story, coupled with Michael finally realizing his love towards Hanna by visiting her grave one time. I enjoyed this book more than most of the other books because I think it has a much deeper and more understandable moral behind the story than the other books we have read thus far.

Zane Van de Put Reaction #3

I thoroughly enjoyed the last part of the Reader. The last part tied up the novel perfectly and finally made me like it. It was short, full of action, and interesting. I think the third part was definitely the best part of the novel. As a whole, the novel was an easy and fast read. However, there were times, especially the first part, where the novel was extremely boring and hard to focus on.

Obviously the major plot point of the third part is Hanna committing suicide. She hangs herself the day before being released from prison. I could not understand why she would do this. She spent so much energy on getting released early. She makes an appeal for clemency and the parole board granted the appeal. Why would Hanna do this and then hang herself the day before she leaves? Could she not deal with going back to the real world after eighteen years in prison? Or did she feel to guilty about what she did in her past and felt that she did not deserve to leave prison? The ending does not grant the readers any answers and leaves them empty handed.

The main theme of the third part of the novel is Absolution. This theme is brought up during the conversation between Michael and the survivor of the burning church. The survivor asks Michael if she should grant Hanna absolutism after finding out that Hanna’s last wish was to give the survivor seven thousand marks. I do not think Hanna should get any absolutism. She did a terrible thing by letting those people die in the burning church. Hanna lied to many people and used kids for sexual desires and reading.

At the end of the novel, it seems as if Hanna gets a happy ending while Michael does not. Hanna’s seven thousand marks go to a Jewish Charity for Illiteracy and it goes under her name. While the somewhat innocent Michael is left to deal with Hanna’s death and live the rest of his life. 

Wesley Groves Post #3

The relationship between Hanna and Michael is very interesting.  Many different factors from their relationship caused the novel to develop in a certain way.  Mainly, the factors that I focused on were the age difference and the perspective of the novel.
An obvious, upfront abnormality in their relationship was the age difference of the two.  Not even that necessarily, because although the age gap was large it was only strange because of Michaels age. had he been, say 5 years older it would not have been as weird.  But this young 15 year old boy was quick to fall for the first woman he ever had feelings for (easily mistaken for love, as he had never felt it before)  Had Michael been older, things would have been different.  He would not have fallen in love with her, and he most likely would have based their relationship off of personality and not the fact that this is the only woman who has ever slept with him.  An older Michael would have not been pushed around by Hanna and would have seen her for who she is.
This leads to the other interesting thing about the novel.  To me at least, the novel seemed to focus on Hanna a lot more than Michael.  Since Michael is the narrator, that creates a curtain of mystery we will never see behind.  While we see how she can be viewed by others, we are never allowed into Hanna's head.  We do not get to see her side of things, and never get to see her motives.  This only helps to make her actions and past even more intriguing, at least to me.

Alex Williams Reaction 3

            Overall this book was enjoyable in that it was a quick and simple read. I read with a certain bias because of the themes paper we were given. As I read, I kept trying to tie everything in with the themes we were given, and with some of them I just don’t think they have strong support. I saw Michael and Hanna’s relationship as one sided, with Hanna holding all the power and constantly manipulating Michael. At the same time though, I thought she really did care for him. Perhaps in the beginning he was simply an object for her to use, but I think it developed into more than that. She wanted him to not miss school and do his work and when she was in prison she eventually communicated with him.

            Part 3 was a shock with Hanna’s death. I did not think this would be the kind of story that would have a happy ending, but I was still surprised that Hanna killed herself right before she got out. I thought that maybe the guilt was too much for her. She felt that as long as she was in prison, she could live because she was being punished, but when faced with freedom, she thought that she did not deserve this and took her own life as a final punishment for what she did. However, even though she was a Nazi, I don’t think she is as guilty as the court portrayed her. She held readings for those who were sent to their death and she took responsibility for many things she did not do. She taught herself to read in prison, and instead of reading something she would enjoy, she tortured herself with memoirs written by holocaust survivors. She clearly regretted what she did and even left all her money with the hope that she could make amends for what she did.

            Michael was also heavily affected. This one relationship screwed up his entire life. After Hanna, it seemed he was incapable of love. His marriage failed and he does not have a good relationship with his daughter. It seemed that Hanna left him empty, void of deep emotion like others around him. It seemed that he was just going through the motions when he was donating her money and he only visited her grave once.  

Hernán Prieto Reaction 3

I continued to read the novel "The Reader" I found myself in a peculiar place. Over the first two parts of the novel my emotions were clear as to the character of Hanna. She was a woman who was clearly taking advantage of a minor, not only physically but also mentally. Mentally as in when Michael when he found out that Hanna had left or as he said abandoned her life and completely disappeared this created a series of events that lead to his mental instability (throwing up, not eating) when this occurred I as the reader felt relief, and in a sense figured that Michael was no longer going to be affected by him. The sense of disgust towards her was slowly fading, until we found out that she was a nazi, it was when her trial began to go down hill (as expected), she was sentenced to jail and then ends up committing suicide, and also we find out that she was illiterate that's when my emotions are changed, although very little, although contradicting, I did find myself feeling bad for her. And the situation she was in. 

When I finished the novel, I couldn't understand if I liked the novel or if I didn't but it was interesting and in a sense it did help in an insightful way.

Jerry Bonnell Reaction #3

By the conclusion of The Reader, I have come to realize that innocence and guilt are not necessarily absolutes. We  attempt to maintain order and balance by manifesting our ideals in a judiciary system. However, despite our best efforts, even the structured Court is more inconsistent in nature than we would like to admit. Trials are a search for factual evidence leading to a black-and-white judgment devoid of nuance and inconsiderate of human emotion and consciousness. By making rulings according to laws and precedent, the judicial system fails to recognize the complexities and incongruities of human nature. We are not perfect, though the judiciary holds us to a false notion of perfection.

Enter Hanna, the woman on trial for War Crimes as an SS officer during World War II. From the moment of her introduction, it is clear that she is not perfect. She makes a morally ambiguous decision of seducing a teenage boy, and subsequently leaving him without a formal farewell. We are automatically forced to hold a strong prejudice against her actions. “What is wrong with her and why would she deceive such a young boy?” are questions that we ask during the novel’s unraveling. When she is revealed to have been a former SS officer during the war, these questions suddenly have an answer. We assume that she is a caricature of a Nazi, as depicted by the media. But, in fact, her role during the war is not much different from that of an Allied soldier, in that she followed orders and tried to help ease the pain of her prisoners when she could. It can be said that she made the best of a bad situation and that given her position, it would have been difficult to make different decisions. This is most apparent when she questions the presiding judge on the trial. “What would you have done?” she asks, and he is unable to respond. Yet even the reader is lured into this question. What is the appropriate course of action? To follow orders or to accept death? Can a person be held to the impossible standard of upholding morality while also faced with a life-or-death situation?

This book masterfully tackles some of the deepest questions of our human nature, without pushing the political envelope too far. In the case of Hanna, was she supposed to act altruistically or in the interest of her self-survival? Likewise, does Michael’s love for Hanna change the gruesomeness of her seduction and arguably her abuse of him as a teenager?