#THE READER BY BERNHARD SCHLINK ESSAYS FULL#

His older self narrating the story reflects that it is Hanna’s unawareness that attracted Michael, yet it is exactly this obliviousness that helped facilitated her crimes as a Nazi. The younger Michael uses his memories of Hanna to fulfill his youthful desire. Michael identifies Hanna’s comfortable grace as “an invitation to forget the world in the recesses of the body.” However, Michael at 15 years old did not realize it yet, the images of Hanna are replaying in his mind over and over again. This is the first time that Michael is feeling a sense of shame and it suggests that the second generation, represented by Michael, should be ashamed of their love for the first generation which is shown through the rest of the novel as guilt.īernhard Schlink further presents Hanna and Michael’s relationship as generational conflict between Nazi perpetrators, and their children.

#THE READER BY BERNHARD SCHLINK ESSAYS FULL#

But when she then sees and realizes that Michael is watching her and continues on watching with a look that is “surprised, skeptical, knowing, reproachful.” Michael, full of guilt and shame, leaves the apartment and the building. Michael who is unable to stop himself from watching, “takes in the sight of her neck, her shoulders, her breasts, her hips, and her stocking-covered legs”. However, the door is left marginally open so that Michael can see her and he watches her undress. Towards the beginning of the novel when Michael is at Hanna’s house and is ready to leave, Hanna says she’ll walk him out, but she decides to change her clothes first so Michael then waits in the hall while she changes in the kitchen.

For Michael this becomes a guilt that is passed down from generation to generation throughout the whole nation and is described as an unavoidable “German fate.”Schlink first portrays the theme of guilt in the novel when Michael meets Hanna. Michael believes, loyal love, “made them irrevocable complicit in their crimes.” He recognizes love for the first generation Nazis as a complicity that speaks to the long-standing role of guilt in Germany’s history.

The reader by bernhard schlink essays