What is the image about?
The image focuses on the earlier years of Keller's life told through someone Keller once knew well. The time is of the holocaust and of the Nazis when Keller was playing for Hitler and his men. Henisch told how Keller thought he was untouchable because he had played for such a great and powerful person in that time. This image establishes a past Keller and a past that he had once found enjoyable but to have it all taken away brought the bitter and unimpressionable Keller that Paul knows today.
Key Quotes
“A Wagner specialist. And now the heirs of Wagner came and dragged her away” (page 136)
“He had two choices: to become invisible or to become so visible that nothing could touch him.” (page 136)
“Henisch removed a stud from his shirt sleeve and jerked back the sleeve; on the outside of the leather-brown forearm I could see a tattoo, six digits, of which I remember only the first, a faded B” (page 137)
How has the image been constructed? Language features and analysis.
Paul, the narrator, acknowledges in these pages the images of Keller and his past which are equally saddening, haunting and memorable.
The image has been constructed as Keller educates Paul about the basis of life through music metaphors and Paul discovers other cultures and lives through Keller’s experiences in Vienna.
Paul’s first impression when Henisch is describing a past Keller is of a noble man willed by his beliefs and defined by his actions. Goldsworthy uses an ellipsis to convey Paul’s surprise and bewilderment at Keller’s ignorance and his actions.
“Henisch removed a stud from his shirt sleeve and jerked back the sleeve; on the outside of the leather-brown forearm I could see a tattoo, six digits, of which I remember only the first, a faded B.” This describes the tattoos workers were identified by at labour camps that used the inmates as slave workforce. Both Keller and Henisch have