The Reader Sparknotes

1624 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Literary techniques

1. I read all of the 218 pages of The Reader by Bernhard Schlink. The book was originally published by Diogenes Verlag AG in Zurich, Switzerland but later published by Vintage Books in New York.
2. The book is realistic fiction because it takes place in a real place, with a very realistic story and characters. The story takes place in Germany after the Holocaust. The story is plausible with grounded characters
3. I finished the book in two days. 4. Michael Berg is the main character, narrator and protagonist of the book. Michael is a 15 year old adolescent born into a middle class family in West Germany. He was sick with hepatitis and while throwing up in the street meets a woman that is more than twice his age and has an affair with her. Michael was a young, ordinary teenager. He is easy to be around and has many friends due to his …show more content…

He got married to Gertrud, he had met her on a ski trip. They had a daughter but when Julia was five, Michael and Gertrud divorced. It had always been Hanna to him. When he held Gertrud, kissed her, or smelled her, it felt wrong. Gertrud felt wrong to him. Michael once again was haunted by Hanna and what she had done to him. She gave him the warmth and love his father denied him of, the same warmth he denied Julia when he had divorced Gertrud. Michael had become restless, barely getting any sleep. Late one night, Michael decided to read, but the only way he could do it was by reading out loud. And so he did, he read out loud and eventually, he started reading to Hanna again. He recorded himself reading books they had once enjoyed together in his teens. He sent her a tape player and the cassettes, numbered and labeled. He once again became attached to her, reading to her and sending her cassettes became a ritual. After a while, Hanna started writing to him, thanking him and commenting about the recent stories she had

Show More
Related

  • Michael Vey Prisoner Of Cell 25 Analysis

    243 Words  | 1 Pages

    Michael was loyal and dedicated when he shocked Clyde, the guy that was trying to rob his mother. in that scene he was showing loyalty to his mother by Shocking Clyde, his mom became safe from hid gun.

    Read More

  • The Other Sister Sparknotes

    1291 Words  | 3 Pages

    A movie, “The Other Sister,” is about two mentally challenged people name Carla Tate and Daniel. Carla Tate, a 24-year old woman, return to San Francisco from a sheltered boarding school after long years. After rejoining with her overprotective mother Elizabeth, a gentle and thoughtful father Radley, and two young and older sisters, Carla announces that she wants to attend a local school called Bay Area Polytech, a normal vocational school. Nevertheless of her mother Elizabeth’s disapproval, Radley supports her to pursue her dream. On the first day, Carla meets a boy named Danny and helps him when someone calls him “retarded.” They both get close to each other and fall in love quickly. Carla envied Danny for living on his own, so

    Read More

  • Who Is The Antagonist In Swallowing Stones

    513 Words  | 2 Pages

    Michael had shot off the rifle that killed Jenna’s father. Michael had accidentally shot it into the sky to show his best friend, Joe, how it works. Michael then heard about Jenna’s father’s death and knew instantly that it was his fault. He “remembered the story about the girl who choked on a stone” (page 32) and knew that he was also choking on his guilt. Michael keeps denying that he killed Mr. Ward but he knows in the end that it was him. Michael has also lied to the police about where the gun is and how his best friend Joe borrowed it. Michael should be honest and tell the police what has actually happened and maybe he will not get into so much trouble. Michael has also cheated on his girlfriend with Amy Ruggerio. That has affected him throughout the story because his ex girlfriend was spreading rumors about him. In conclusion, Michael has done deeds that affect him in the whole

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Looking For Alibrandi By Melina Marchetta

    837 Words  | 2 Pages

    It wasn’t a pleasant meeting at Nonna house. Josie was very rude towards Michael. She wanted to make Michael feel bad. She did that by saying “My mother had me young” (page 39). After that statement, Michael’s face went pale and he looked at her in absolute shock.

    Read More

  • Geronimo Sparknotes

    1028 Words  | 3 Pages

    “Geronimo: an American legend” is a story of an apache warrior who fought against the United States in order to preserve his peoples culture. The film starts off, ironically, with the first surrender of Geronimo. His people are sent to a reservation called turkey creek. On this reservation they were expected to become farmers that would produce mostly corn. However the apache where not harvesting enough to sustain their community and had to rely on government checks.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Imagery In Night By Elie Wiesel

    598 Words  | 2 Pages

    A story of a young boy and his father as they are stolen from their home in Transylvania and taken through the most brutal event in human history describes the setting. This boy not only survived the tragedy, but went on to produce literature, in order to better educate society on the truth of the Holocaust. In Night, the author, Elie Wiesel, uses imagery, diction, and foreshadowing to describe and define the inhumanity he experienced during the Holocaust.

    Read More

  • Attempting to Understand Eliezer Wiesel’s Night

    508 Words  | 2 Pages

    In 1944, the Jews of Hungary were relatively unaffected by the catastrophe that was destroying the Jewish communities of Europe in spite of the infamous Nuremberg Laws of 1935-designed to dehumanize German Jews and subject them to violence and prejudice. The Holocaust itself did not reach Hungary until 1944. In Wiesel's native Sighet, the disaster was even worse: of the 15,000 Jews in prewar Sighet, only about fifty families survived the Holocaust. In May of 1944, when Wiesel was fifteen, his family and many inhabitants of the Sighet shtetl were deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. The largest and deadliest of the camps, Auschwitz was the site of more than 1,300,000 Jewish deaths. Wiesel's father, mother, and little sister all died in the Holocaust. Wiesel himself survived and immigrated to France. His story is a horror story that comes to life when students in high school read this novel. Even though many students have not witnessed or participated in such horror, they relate to the character because Wiesel is their age. They cannot believe someone went through the nightmare he did at their age.

    Read More

  • Adversity In Night By Elie Wiesel

    986 Words  | 2 Pages

    The main character of the novel is a thirteen-year-old boy named Eliezer. He and his family were taken from their home and placed in a concentration camp. He was separated from his mother and sisters during the selection once they arrived in the camp. His father was the only family he had left with him to face the inhumane environment of the camp. Many of the prisoners lost the will to live due to the conditions.

    Read More

  • Stereotyping In The Blind Side

    1233 Words  | 3 Pages

    TS: The role that Leigh Anna and Michael’s real mother play in his life is like day and night.

    Read More

  • Similarities Between The Book Thief And Nazi Germany

    1308 Words  | 3 Pages

    The heavily proclaimed novel “The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak is a great story that can help you understand what living in Nazi Germany was like. Throughout the story, the main character, Liesel goes through many hardships to cope with a new life in a new town and to come to the recognition of what the Nazi party is. Liesel was given up for adoption after her mother gave her away to a new family, who seemed harsh at first, but ended up being the people who taught her all the things she needed to know. Life with the new family didn’t start off good, but the came to love them and her new friend, Rudy. As the book carried along, it was revealed that the Hubermanns were not Nazi supporters, and even took in a Jew and hid him in their basement later on in the book. Liesel became great friends with the Jew living in her basement, Max, who shared many similarities which helped form their relationship. Both of

    Read More

  • The Berlin Boxing Club

    817 Words  | 2 Pages

    I really enjoyed this book because it was not a story about the middle of the Second World War. Instead it was right before, when things were not as bad, but they were bad enough. It helped me understand how people lived before the hatred grew and how families were torn apart right from the beginning. Likewise, it gave me hope to see that not everything was destroyed and that some people were able to escape. I would recommend this book more for boys but for girls as well, between the ages of 13-15. Even though Karl’s age throughout the book is 14-17, the novel was written more for my age group. Once again this was an amazing book that I could not put down, and I am sure many others were not able to either.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Reading To Write By Stephen King

    925 Words  | 2 Pages

    Many people think that reading more can help them to think and develop before writing something. Others might think that they don’t need to read and or write that it can really help them to brainstorm things a lot quicker and to develop their own ideas immediately (right away). The author’s purpose of Stephen King’s essay, Reading to Write, is to understand the concepts, strategies and understandings of how to always read first and then start something. The importance of this essay is to understand and comprehend our reading and writing skills by brainstorming our ideas and thoughts a lot quicker. In other words, we must always try to read first before we can brainstorm some ideas and to think before we write something. There are many reasons why I chose Stephen King’s essay, Reading to Write, by many ways that reading can help you to comprehend, writing, can help you to evaluate and summarize things after reading a passage, if you read, it can help you to write things better and as you read, it can help you to think and evaluate of what to write about.

    Read More

  • Swallowing Stones

    357 Words  | 1 Pages

    Michael changed drastically over the course of only a few weeks. He learned more about his friends, family, and himself than he ever wanted to know.

    Read More

  • A Father's Promise Analysis

    424 Words  | 1 Pages

    The protagonists are Rudi Kaplan; a Jewish Christian with a Swedish appearance as his mother was Swedish. Jakob Kaplan, Rudi’s father, who was faithful, kind and very helpful in many ways. Rudi’s best friend, Salek Serdusek, his father, Eryk, and Salek’s mother, Sara were the Kaplans closes friends. Ingrid, was a little girl that doesn’t speak, and who Rudi named after his mother. There’s also Oscar, a resistance fighter who was brave, slightly prideful and warm-hearted. The last few protagonists are the Kaminsky family, who lived in an apartment building, below the Kaplans, Anna, who is patient, brave and hygienic, and Josef. The two main antagonists are Frank and Mende who are both German soldiers.

    Read More

  • Soren Kierkegaard's Love Life

    1067 Words  | 3 Pages

    Being a shepherd boy Michael experienced a lot of suffering and pain, leading him to curse god for his hardships. Over time Michael became successful in life resulting in early retirement. However Michael youngest son, Soren Kierkegaard thought so otherwise. As mentioned by Kierkegaard in the King Lear, Act 5 Scene 3, Kierkegaard suspects that his “father’s great age was not a divine blessing but rather a curse; that [his] family’s excellent mental abilities existed only for tearing [them] apart from one another” . Soren K. belief of his family being cursed brought upon the disruption of the relationship between his father, Michael Kierkegaard and himself. Also in addition, it led to the broken engagement with Regine Olsen. At 27 years old, Soren Kierkegaard was engaged to Regine Olsen, who was only 18 at the time, until Soren decided to call it off one year later. There were exactly two reasons as to why Soren decided to call off his engagement with Regine Olsen even though, both of them loved each other. First was the fact that Soren had bouts of melancholia, which made him feel unjust for Regina. Secondly, Soren felt he had a short period of lifespan due to the belief of his family being cursed. Soren confided in Constantine Constantius, who told him “that in order to break off the relationship he must, in effect, become a villain”. Soren

    Read More

More about The Reader Sparknotes

Open Document