Hana's Suitcase: A Literary Analysis

Children literature is a term that refers to the texts written for children. The artist uses creative ways to ensure that children are provided with educational books, touching on a variety of themes. This paper will include comparison of two characters from the two texts, “Hana's Suitcase: A True Story,” authored by Karen Levine and “Charlotte’s Web,” written by E.B. White, with the aim of understanding ways in which problems are solvable as indicated by selected characters.
In the book, “Hana's Suitcase: A True Story,” Fumiko Ishioka is one of the outstanding characters. Fumiko is the organizer of the Children's Holocaust Education Center in Tokyo, Japan and her role begins in a small museum, when she figures out that Japanese children had

critical questions regarding a suitcase seated in a glass cabinet. According to Levine’s text, Japanese children are aware that the bag in the glass was initially traceable to a girl named Hana Brady, and the girl was from Auschwitz, a camp where many people died during Second World War, between 1939 and 1945. It is her objective to utilize the Holocaust to show Japanese kids about the risks of narrow-mindedness and scorn and to urge them to use what they figure out how to advance to peace and comprehension (Levine 3-110).
In the text “Hana’s Suitcase, Fumiko Ishioka experiences some level of conflict that compels her to find physical object that would enable her to teach her class.

The groups that are antagonistic include, the Holocaust museum fraternity and Ishioka and her class. According to Karen Levine, “When Fumiko felt sad about her life, she thought of these survivors. They were so strong willed and wise. They had so much to teach her.,” and these survivors are the victims of the Holocaust (Levine 10). The quote above indicates that Fumiko had some emotional argument, a Character vs. Self conflict. She was disturbed by Japanese historical experiences and relating to that of mass killing in Germany. Fumiko felt her only way out of such emotional turmoil could be resolved by teaching the Japanese children and it was her to make it happen. And by searching Hana Brady’s story is her source of confidence a to solve this conflict. She travels the world to look for artifacts and finally, when Fumiko visited Terezin Ghetto Museum, she found a list of children imprisoned and even discovered Hana’s brother named George. The records even showed that George survived the tragedy. The information Fumiko uncovered didn’t stop her to continue searching for her questions about Hana until she found Hana’s brother George who is now living in Toronto. Finally, Fumiko and George met in Tokyo and as Karen Levine described, “Fumiko beamed with pride as, one by one, they presented George with their drawings

and poems about Hana”, and with this it shows that Fumiko accomplished her goal in unfolding Hana’s story and shared it to her students.
In the text by Levine, the phrase “There at a well-known camp, she visited the Auschwitz museum. Fumiko begged for a short meeting with the museum’s assistant director. She was given five minutes to explain what she wanted,” meaning that institutions did not support the behind taking the artifacts she wanted (Levine 12). Such a sentence indicates conflicting interests between the director of the museum and Fumiko Ishioka with Japanese children; a character versus another character version of conflict as noted by Karen Levine (11-12), “Fumiko was looking for a pair of shoes and a suitcase. Everyone turned her down, telling her that the objects they had so carefully preserved were too precious to send to such a small museum, so for away.” Fumiko resolves the conflict of interest by her persistent request, in which enables her to receive the physical tools after a few months. Fumiko’s search for artifacts and using them to teach children about Holocaust is critical to people from all walks of life. When she finds the artifacts from Auschwitz museum, which include child’s socks, shoes, sweater, a con of Zyklon B poisonous gas and a suitcase, all in one package, she encourages individual groups of persons to be courageous and having perseverance. Also, she sets an example to everyone that peacekeeping between communities is not only a collective but also individual responsibility.
The text “Charlotte’s Web” is composed of animal characters that interact together and consequently they gain new experiences.

Among the characters is Wilbur and Charlotte. Wilbur had Character vs. Self conflict concerning friendship as she thinks of Charlotte, “I’ve got a new friend, all right! But what a gamble friendship is! Charlotte is fierce, brutal, scheming, and bloodthirsty-everything I don’t like. How can I learn to like her, even though she is beautiful and, of course, smart?” Such thoughts of Wilbur indicate that he had fears and doubt on whether to accept Charlotte as her friend (White 41). But Wilbur is helpless and needs friend to rely to save his life so to solve his problem, he tries to be like Charlotte so as to solve his conflict. Such an attempt is comprehensible to readers that Wilbur imitates Charlotte’s spinning of a web, so as to relate to a friend’s ability. Such mimicking is supposed to alleviate the lack of confidence friendship. As their story continue, Wilbur discover that his impression with Charlotte is wrong. Underneath Charlotte’s cruel exterior, she has kind heart and a loyal and true friend to the very

end.
When Wilbur is about to die by the hands of Mr. Arable because of being a runt pig; Fern disagrees to killing Wibur and insist it is not fair “This is the most terrible case of injustice I ever heard of,” (White 3). Wilbur is subjected to life and death that indicates a Character vs Social World conflict, Wilbur’s life is in danger for being a runt pig and one of the customs of life in a farm is that runts pigs are killed at birth because it is too expensive to raise them. Wilbur attempts to stop this with the help of his friend Charlotte. Charlotte is going to do her best to keep Wilbur alive with her web writing and these efforts continue up to the time when he brought to the fair and wins the prize thus ensures Wilbur’s survival. In the end, Charlotte’s sacrifice her life as she uses all her energy to spin a final message that saved Wilbur’s life and in return, Wilbur taking good care of Charlotte’s young off spring.