The Third Lie Analysis

In a novel where the plot continues to change, through new information being layered over old, the reader questions the believability of the main characters, Kristof’s audience may have difficulty grasping the values presented in a story such as The Third Lie. Despite the chaotic method in which the plot is written, Kristof communicates meaningful ideas to her audience. Three of which will be discussed in the following paragraphs.

One of the ideas the story of Lucas and Claus illustrates is that life can be tumultuous and disordered, achieved first by Kristof using the bombing of their homeland during war. Devastation that war produces, rebuilding foundations, searching for family members, and restoring normalcy is a long tortuous process. Second, having their family torn apart by the father’s infidelity (Kristof 435). The upheaval that took place in the lives of these children Kristof

makes easy to understand.
Another key point is Kristof utilizing the division of eastern and western Europe as a picture of the separation of Claus and Lucas. Taking into account, each brother living under different ideologies, for so a long period of time, their outlooks and expectations were not anything like there were when they last saw each other (Kristof 425). The wall between east and west served as a partition keeping countless families disconnected, just as Lucas and Claus were disconnected. For this reason, reunification is difficult, sometimes never happening. This disconnection had a deleterious effect on Lucas since he “spent most of his childhood in a hospital” abandoned (Kristof 357). Not having visits from his mother and father meant, for Lucas, growing up feeling rejected, without affection and guidance from his parents and his claiming as an adult that no ever taught him how to love (Kristof 428, 429).
A third concept Kristof conveys is a reader cannot believe everything that is written, especially if it is fiction, which by its meaning is not factual but an invented story by the author.

She achieves this through Lucas admitting that everything he writes is “absolutely meaningless” and that he changes his story as it suits him (Kristof 345). His claim of mental retardation is suspect as can be seen by the reaction of the bookseller (Kristof 349). What else makes this difficult is that Lucas states that he is looking for a brother and then says that he invented him (Kristof 395). Kristof also applies the theme of lying to the propaganda printed in the newspaper, where Klaus works, on behalf of the Communist Party. None of the “abundance and happiness” which the Party claims is enjoyed by its citizens is seen anywhere by Klaus or Gaspar, with whom he works Kristof 469). The final reason believing what is print is not always reliable is by naming this book This Third Lie. While readers would like to make sense of Kristof’s story and trust the truth of it, in the end they

cannot.