Bernhard Schlink Essays

  • The Reader

    1279 Words  | 3 Pages

    Writing style is the way a text is written to portray the author’s message to the audience. The Reader portrays the struggle of post Third Reich generations coming to terms with Nazi war crimes, by effectively using a unique writing style. Bernard Schlink uses first-person point-of-view, clear and descriptive language, short chapters, metaphors and various tones. The Reader is written in the first-person point of view, Schlink's style is sparse and his language is simple. Michael Berg, the protagonist

  • She Put Her Arms Around Me By Sheng Shlink

    1367 Words  | 3 Pages

    couldn’t see much of her, we were standing too close. But I was overwhelmed by the presence of her naked body.” (Schlink 24) The section of text that this quote is from disgusted and greatly shocked me, not because the two characters were intimate, but because the main character Michael was fifteen and the woman he was intimate with, Hanna, was in her early thirties. The author Bernhard Schlink is able to elicit this response from the reader because the scene is so aberrant and unexpected. “I had woken

  • Guilt, Shame And Betrayal In 'The Reader'

    661 Words  | 2 Pages

    Prompt 4 : The context of guilt, shame and betrayal in''The Reader'' By Andreas Kill The Reader is a novel by Bernhard Schlink set in postwar Germany. The novel revolves around the live of Michael Berg, who, at the age of 15 met and had a love affair with Hanna, a much older woman in her 30's. After a brief afair that lasted only months, Hanna dissapeard one day, leaving Michael to face inner termoil regarding the reasons for her disertion of him. Many years later, when Michael is a law student

  • Reaction to The Reader

    927 Words  | 2 Pages

    Reaction to The Reader In part II, chapter eight of Bernhard Schlink's The Reader, the first-person narrator Michael describes reading the account written by a concentration camp who had survived along with her mother, the soul survivors in a large group of women who were being marched away from the camp. He says, "the book...creates distance. It does not invite one to identify with it and makes no one sympathetic..." The same could be said of The Reader. The book is written in such a way

  • The Power Of Context: Heroes

    1186 Words  | 3 Pages

    Fortunately, in the real world, heroes come in all shapes and sizes. We have heroes in everyday life, whether they do the simplest thing or the most magnificent thing. In the essay “The power of context” by Malcolm Gladwell, he presents the story of Bernhard Goetz, a man who was tormented by the fear of crimes in New York City where he lived. Goetz eventually snapped and shot four delinquents on a train. At that time Goetz was considered a hero for eliminating some of the neighborhood’s problems. But

  • Case: NY versus Bernhard Goetz

    744 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the case of NY v Bernhard Goetz, on December 22, 1984, a Saturday afternoon, Troy Canty, Darryl Cabey, Barry Allen, and James Ramseur boarded an IRT express subway train in the Bronx heading south toward lower Manhattan. The four young men rode together in the back section of seventh car of the train. The defendant Bernhard Goetz boarded the same subway train at 14th street in Manhattan and sat on a bench near the back section of the same car of the train as the four youths. Goetz carried an

  • Bernhard Goetz Trial

    1394 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Bernhard Goetz Trial 1987 Throughout history there has been considerable tension between race and crimes committed. The court trial of Bernhard Goetz initiated debate on race and crime in the major cities, and the limitations of self-defense. Bernhard Goetz in 1984 shot five bullets in a New York City subway, seriously wounding four young black men. After turning himself into the police nine days later, the public now knew who was the shooter. Bernhard Goetz was entitled the “Subway Vigilante”

  • Bernhard Riemann Biography

    1160 Words  | 3 Pages

    Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann was a revolutionary mathematician. He was born on September 17, 1826 in Breselenz, a village in Germany. His father, Friedrich Bernhard Riemann, who was a Lutheran minister, taught Riemann until he was ten. Then, Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann was taught by a teacher from a local school. Riemann had always displayed an interest in mathematics, especially when he studied at Lüneburg at the age of fourteen. His teacher gave him a textbook on a number theory by Legendre

  • Perspectives on Love in Bernard Schlink's The Reader

    1144 Words  | 3 Pages

    romantic love is the passionate affection one has for another. As Bernhard Schlink favours love over hate, and narrates both the positive effects of a relationship and the negative effects of a breakup, he is portrayed as a proponent of love. Bernhard Schlink uses his novel, The Reader, to express his feelings on the unexpected love between the characters, Hanna and Michael convey both the positive and negative effects of their love. Schlink also uses their relationship to showcase the form of love they

  • Michael's Use Of Allegory

    1626 Words  | 4 Pages

    by the spirit of the time, or in other words, the zeitgeist of Post World War II, which focused greatly on the vulnerability experienced by the Germans and the promise of greatness and restoration of national pride that the Nazis were offering. Schlink captures this through the use of symbolism, allegory, analogy and characterisation and allows readers to view the time period from the perspective of an adolescent German. He also gives the reader an opportunity to develop a sense of empathy for the

  • Throughou Before The Reader Essay

    916 Words  | 2 Pages

    Set in post World War ll Germany, Bernhard Schlink’s touching and powerful novel The Reader follows the affair between 15-year-old protagonist and narrator Michael Berg with Hanna Schmitz, a woman more than twice his age. The text explores overriding themes of guilt and the complexity of human behaviour. Through the use of symbolism and rhetorical devices via dialogue, Schlink transformed my views on many aspects of the Holocaust such as the awareness of the situation held the people involved, guilt

  • German Guilt in Bernhard Schlink's The Reader

    1549 Words  | 4 Pages

    with regards to passion, denial, guilt, and finally justice? Absolutely, according to Michael Berg, the main character in Bernhard Schlink?s novel, The Reader. After being hypnotized for two days while I read this very interesting story, I would have to agree. Once I saw the startling similarities in the area of seduction, the door opened for me to see what I believe Schlink was trying to show all along. We are capable of behaving in quite extraordinary ways, but when all is said and done, we must

  • Bernhard Schlink's The Reader

    1058 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the book The Reader by Bernhard Schlink, the author offers a point of view on what it was like in the minds of the generations of people in Germany after the Holocaust. As many young people tried to distance themselves from their older relatives in order avoid the guilt and the shame that came with being a part of the family, this novel highlights the reality of the situation of the younger generation: no German could escape the true guilt that came with loving people who committed such monstrosities

  • Water For Elephants Figurative Language

    1476 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Book and Movie Water For Elephants is Quite Moody Bernhard Schlink once said, “As an author, you hope for a director and a cast that will make something wonderful out of your book” The director, Francis Lawrence, did just this for the author, Sara Gruen, and her book, Water for Elephants. Water for Elephants is a thrilling romance about a man named Jacob Jankowski, who jumps on a train and joins the circus. He then falls in love with a girl who has a crazy husband. This plot that pulls on the

  • The Reader Sparknotes

    1624 Words  | 4 Pages

    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