Analytical Response: Stones From The River

June Ezeadiugwu
ENG 202
Lister
October 19, 2010
Analytical Response #1: Stones from the River
We all have flaws and insecurities that continue to linger amount us in our lives. What we sometimes tend to forget is with the discrepancies we dwell on, they may very well give us strength and become a positive feature in the long run. Throughout this novel, you see many themes of friendship, love, hate, and war. However, I believe this novel articulates an underlying theme of the struggle between encompassing the power of being different versus the agony and pain of it in societal structures such as Burgdorf. Hegi shows many instances where Trudi’s difference goes beyond her physical difference of being a Zwerg, but also noting her intellectual difference. It is because Trudi’s life has shaped her and has made her unique. Ultimately, the benefit outweighs the tragedy.
Some may argue that Trudi’s physical “drawback” caused more harm than good.
With her and the boys in the Braumeir’s barn, and them violating her in their perverse quest to feed their curiosity. This is one instance where people have been drawn toward Trudi’s difference (even in a negative circumstance such as this one). There was also case where Trudi’s mother Gertrud became insane and neglected to her motherly duties due to Gertrud sensing a difference in Trudi as a new born. The callous rejection Klaus left her after he pretended the kiss they shared between them didn’t exist. Even Trudi knowing that the town used her as an example of
ridicule.
It would be inaccurate to make the notion that Trudi’s physical difference solely made her blossom intellectually and mentally. There have been many instances in the novel where her insecurities have lingered from the beginning to the very end of the novel. Starting from childhood where Trudi would hang from door frames to make herself taller to her adult hood where her insecurities about her height seep into conversation with Max Rudnick (Hegi 389).
Trudi’s strength comes from her experience---the underlying turmoil of self-doubt and mis-happening. Trudi as a character shows a wealth of knowledge in the ability to assess and understand her environment to a tee. With that Trudi holds an enormous amount of power to an high degree.
The power of decampment. During the sensitive time of the Furer, Trudi was captured for making a statement about the flag at Matthias’ recital. There was a scene where she was conversing with the Gestapo officer who would decides her fate as a prisoner and Trudi immediately realizes how to use her. “But If she’d learned anything, it was how to be a Zwerg, to play the Zwerg. Funny almost, the way it gave you a strange power to let others look down on you, to let them bask in their illusion was a gift—hers to grant, simply by being a gift that turned some of them ugly and defenseless, and therefore useful” (Hegi 382). She found a way to fee his “cold curiosity eloquently using the metaphor of the boy born with his heart outside his skin to how show how being a Zwerg is indeed like everyone assuming they know your biggest secret. With Trudi, shown was the power to live, the power of conviction, leading to the power if the Gestapo officer to let her free.
The power of validity. With Trudi’s non judgmental nature, she embraces the secrets of the people of Burgdorf. The legitimacy of the secret comes from having to “always guard your secret from her. You’d weaken: something in her generous eyes would make you want to tell her though you don’t want to give in…” (Hegi 246). This shows how Trudi is a stone in the river. The river is the town of Burgdorf trying desperately to keep their ways of stuffing the skeletons in their closet alive, while Trudi is the a intrusion, exemplifying stone that cause disorder to the flow of the river, the flow of their lives.
The power of authority. After the war, you see people who comfortably stayed silent and complacent during the war and then transitioned into coming in the pay library to see Trudi and her father, “begging them to write letters that would testify to their impeccable character and prove they’d always opposed the Partei “(Hegi 460). This irony definitely proves again how Trudi can affect their in i=a more literal way. Trudi being one of the few people to be seen as a credible source to the American soldiers can determine someone’s fate with just a simple stroke of a pen on a piece of paper. She chose to be selective and not fabricate the truth, and with that she drives some into bearing the consequences of the inaction.
The power of coercion. Hitler uses this method to mobilize the masses in instilling confidence and eradication fear from his Aryan people. Whether those agreed on result of this action or not, it is clearly an effective method. Hitler used his charm, while Trudi used storytelling to create a world of peace for Konrad. “With the stories she took the boy to the meadows and the fairgrounds and let him fill his chest with the spring air” (Hegi 333). The reality of Konrad being a Jew is so dangerous, that Trudi found a way to protect Konrad from the cruelty of his surroundings. She harnessed the power to place a blanket of love and hope, to preserve his innocence as a young boy.
To truly understand how powerful the diversity of power Trudi holds, one must look at George’s conformity and how “fitting in” can lead to one’s destruction. “ His face was tilted up as it used to come out and play, and he looked the way he had before he’d become like other boys, before that day in the barn, before he’d fought in the war, before the drinking, before the beating of his wife and children, before absolution had become a sham,” (Hegi 521) before the gambling. When you swim with the river’s current you are going to put less effort to stay afloat, but you won’t know where it’s taking you, where you are; you’re completely lost. The rocks however, become stones from the river using its army in mass rubbing against the crumbled and jagged rock, but over time, that awkward rock turns into a strong, sturdy, and smooth stone.