Guilt In John Schlink's The Reader

A topic that was discussed thoroughly throughout the second half of this class in several novels and movies is guilt, whether criminal, political, moral, or metaphysical. This guilt concerning the Holocaust was discussed in terms of different groups of people, including the offenders, bystanders, or future generations of Germans. In Schlink’s The Reader (1995), for instance, guilt is an integral topic for the book’s main characters and they wrestle with it decades after the Holocaust. However, in non-fictional accounts from survivors, I do not think that their intent is to discuss or imply guilt, as some people believe they do. In my opinion, survivors of the Holocaust strive for its remembrance through a variety of mediums not to instill guilt or shame on future generations, but to preserve their individual, personal stories in history. Primo Levi utilized written text to describe his account in the camps in his memoir Survival in Auschwitz (1947). In the preface, he briefly discusses why he is writing the book so soon after his liberation and thus why there may be minor errors in its structure. Towards the end of his statement, he says, “The need
This book describes the life of his father during his time in the camps, narrated by his father, but also includes scenes of Art himself commenting on the story as his father tells it to him. For example, when his father is retelling a dream he had about a voice telling him the he will be freed, “… on the day of parshas trauma,” Art interrupts him to ask what parshas trauma means (Spiegelman 57). Although many see this merely as an innovative literary tool, I believe that this shows that Art, a member of the second generation of survivors, wanted others to know about the Holocaust as well, which gives not just his father by also himself a lasting connection to the