However, simplicity and authenticity are not directly equivalent to kindness, and sometimes these qualities are closer to cruelty. Like all the scumbags who are despised by the elders, the illiterate Hannah is also a mortal person who lacks the delicateness of "sentimental" (sentimental). In the words of Max Weber, this man has an ethic of belief but no ethic of responsibility. In order to fulfill her duties, she did not regard the Jews in the concentration camps as human beings like herself at all, but treated them as objects of work. Their deaths did not touch her heart in the slightest. Although this person's heart is pure and genuine, it is very narrow. Once chance puts it in the wrong environment, she has the potential to do something very horrific. Unfortunately, fate placed the young Hannah in Auschwitz.
Literary works are the best key to unlocking this kind of narrow mind. I don't know if literature naturally has such a powerful inspiring power, or if there is a seed of literature buried in Hannah's heart, anyway, once the muse string in her heart is plucked, a fresh and powerful force It fills up and leads her out of herself to embrace the new world outside. American female writer Sontag has made a good interpretation of this role of literature:" By contacting literature, especially world literature, one can get rid of the shackles of national vanity, vulgarity, ignorance, narrow-mindedness, ignorant education, and even perverted fate. Literature is the passport to the wider life, the world of freedom. Literature used to mean freedom. Especially in an age where reading and introspection are so seriously challenged, literature still means freedom. "
In this way, Hannah's mind was truly free after she was imprisoned. The boxes of tapes that Mike sent her not only reminded her of that wonderful time and relieved her loneliness, but more importantly, these readings helped her to think about her own life and reflect on her life in Auschwitz. experience.
One detail worth noting is that Hannah also had the Jews she guarded read to her while she was at Auschwitz. But why didn't she change at that time? The answer is clearly in Mike. The seeds of literature need to be watered with the passion of love to grow. In the Symposium, Plato praised eros (love) through the mouth of Diotima, pointing out that it is an important force leading to the discovery of beauty and the truth of the whole. For Hannah, love for Mike propelled her to discover the beauty of literature (interestingly, Mike himself recounts in his recollections that he discovered the beauty of wholeness when he was with Hannah). And once she met Mike in prison and found that his love for her had faded, she committed suicide. There is nothing worthy of her nostalgia in this life. The freedom that literature brings her is purely spiritual, and death brings her ultimate freedom and peace.
View more about The Reader reviews
