Courtney
Novotny
Dr. Esa
German
1125
8
November 2004
The Effects of the Past on the
Present
The past
has a great effect on the daily lives of many people. Individuals who have had trauma in their
lives are especially in need of constructive outlets for releasing their
emotional pain. They must learn to
acknowledge their personal histories and try not to dwell on the past so that
it does not become a major source of unhappiness in daily life. This is especially evident in Bernhard
Schlink’s novel, The Reader, and
Michael Verhoeven’s film, “The Nasty Girl.”
In these works, it is revealed that people’s pasts have lasting effects
on them, and they cope with their pasts in both beneficial and damaging ways.
In The Reader, Michael Berg cannot stop
thinking about his past relationship with Hanna Schmitz, and he copes with his
memories by immersing himself in harmful activities. When Michael was fifteen, he was seduced by
thirty-six year old Hanna, and she dominated him in their relationship, making
him feel guilty and resentful toward her, even though he loved her and did not
leave her. She was later tried and
convicted for her crimes as an SS guard during World War II, and though Michael
had evidence that could have saved her, he kept silent. Michael throws himself into his studies after
Hanna is convicted, saying “I [study] so uninterruptedly, so obsessively, that
the feelings and thoughts that had been deadened by the trial [remain]
deadened” (Schlink 167). He is referring
to the guilt and longing for Hanna that he had felt directly after she had
left, and which he has no desire to feel again.
Bringing back these feelings would be too difficult for him to deal
with; they would only cause him more discontent at not being able to be with
Hanna again. Therefore, he represses his
feelings in order to be able to block out this part of his youth. His method of coping with his past does have
some positive effects – his studying is vital for him to become a lawyer. Still, his repression of his feelings is not
an appropriate way to deal with his past relationship with Hanna. After Hanna apparently disappears, Michael
describes his typical attitude as a “juxtaposition of callousness and extreme
sensitivity” (Schlink 89). In order to
hide the hurt that he feels, he projects a harsh and uncaring face, while at
the same time, the smallest stimulus can bring him to tears. He treats other people in his life cruelly
and without regard for their emotions, including Sophie, his grandfather, and
even his wife. This is how he deals with
the emotional trauma of Hanna’s desertion, and it is unhealthy to repress his
true feelings of betrayal. Michael
cannot have loving relationships with women as a result of his experience with
Hanna. He compares his wife and
girlfriends to Hanna and rejects them because they are not exactly like
her. He therefore divorces his wife and
denies his daughter a whole and loving family.
He denies himself the opportunity to have loving relationships and
instead chooses the dream of the past.
Michael
also uses constructive activities to help him deal with his past, although they
also might not be totally healthy for him.
Michael records cassettes of himself reading books to send to Hanna in
prison. He reads often at night, and he
eventually begins to tape himself in order to try to recreate his time with
Hanna. This is a beneficial act, for it
is through these tapes that Hanna learns to read, ending the source of her
lifelong shame. It also reduces the
stress Michael feels from longing for her company by imitating a major part of
their relationship. Michael writes his
novel as a form of catharsis for his love for Hanna, saying “Maybe I did write
our story to be free of it, even if I never can be” (Schlink 218). He recorded the facts and emotions of his
relationship in order to release them from their hidden place in his heart, and
he finally recognizes that he can never forget them, despite his earlier
attempts. In this way he accepts his
relationship with Hanna as a part of his history, and he can face his future
without being burdened by his past.
In The Reader, Hanna cannot escape her
experiences as a member of the SS, and she deals with her feelings by harming
others. Hanna recreates her life as a
concentration camp guard after the war by starting a relationship with
Michael. He is weak like her favorites
at the camp, she makes him read to her like the prisoners did, and she
eventually abandons him as she did her prisoners. She controls him by making him feel guilty
and apologetic, and she also had great control over her prisoners at the
camp. She replicates her old life in
order to feel powerful and to be comforted by that power, but it is harmful for
Michael, who can never be free of their relationship. His impressions of Hanna dominate all his
relationships with other women, and his emotions are damaged by their time
together. This is understandable because
of the young age at which he first had a sexual relationship in combination
with the twenty-one year age difference, and also because Hanna controlled him completely
during the time they spent together. This
domination continues have an effect on him for the rest of his life. She should have chosen to deal with her
experiences in a way that does not harm others. When Hanna learns to read, she researches the
Holocaust for the remainder of her life, and she neglects her health and
ultimately kills herself when she realizes what she has done. Her death is very painful for Michael, for he
cared for her through the years, and when they finally have the chance to see
each other again, Hanna destroys the opportunity. Her research, a way of coping with the past,
was initially helpful for her, but she allowed her guilt to eventually destroy
her life instead of using her new knowledge to help others. She could have educated her fellow prisoners
on the Holocaust as a form of atonement, but she ruined her own life
instead. Hanna never comes to terms with
her past as an SS guard, and she permits her shame to dictate her actions
instead of using her actions to overcome her shame.
Hanna
also helps others as a way of atoning for her past crimes. She tries to make up for her sins as an SS
guard by becoming a good leader in prison.
She initially keeps herself clean, works diligently in the sewing shop,
holds a strike for increased library funding, loans her tapes to blind
prisoners, and resolves conflicts between prisoners. She realizes that she was not a respectable
leader as a prison guard, so she tries to be a better leader as a
prisoner. Her time in the prison is a
second chance for her – she can show that she has realized her sins of the
past, and that she is willing to try to become a better person. Hanna learns to read so that she can
understand the Nazi concentration camps and what really happened in them. She overcomes her lifelong obstacle,
illiteracy, in order to discover why her actions were considered evil, for she
does not initially understand that they were wrong. Hanna gives all her money after her death to
the woman who had once been one of her prisoners. She dwells on her transgressions for years,
and she wants to make reparations to someone who had suffered from them. Her gift gives her a measure of relief from
her guilt at being the cause of suffering for innocent people, and it is used
to help others in need. This is a good
way of dealing with her past, for she knows that she is materially assisting
someone instead of simply drowning in remorse that helps no one.
In “The
Nasty Girl,” Sonya Wegmus, the protagonist, constantly dwells on the Nazi
history of her town, and she works relentlessly to reveal it. Though she has not personally experienced the
Nazi regime, the thought that respected people in the town may have aided the
Nazis drives her to uncover the truth about their activities and inform the
blind public about the horrors that were committed in her hometown during that
time. For example, an innocent Jewish
citizen, Nathan Krakauer, was executed for allegedly trying to sell one hundred
pairs of underwear to two clergymen, Father Brimmel and Professor Juckenack,
and also for sexually harassing them. She is angry that the clergymen reported
Krakauer, for they knew that he would be severely punished. She is also outraged that the former mayor,
Zumtobel, cooperated with the Nazis and that no one else in her town shares her
feelings. She feels the need to pin the shame
of the Holocaust on only the perpetrators instead of allowing it to fall
vaguely on her entire town, thus clearing her family and friends of the guilt.
Sonya’s
work also has negative consequences. The
research becomes an obsession of hers, and she refuses to stop her work even though
laws are passed that aim at silencing her, the townspeople ostracize her, make
threatening phone calls, sue her, and even bomb her house. Her determination to expose the truth is a
source of danger and frustration for her and her family. Her brooding on the past even strains her
relationship with her husband. She
concentrates solely on her efforts, and it frustrates her husband when she
cannot even halt her work to take care of their children. Her goals to expose the truth about the past
are admirable, but they force her to sacrifice her personal life in order to
fulfill them. She is successful in
shedding light on the hidden past of her town, but the knowledge is not gained
painlessly – reputations are ruined and Sonya’s relationships with her family
and the townspeople are strained. Her
way of dealing with the past is painful for those who wish to forget it, but she
puts her desire for knowledge above nearly any other priority in her life.
The
townspeople try to hide their Nazi past from Sonya, and they resort to cruel
and unjust means to do so. When Sonya
tries to access the Zumtobel file at the newspaper archives, the archivist
tries to prevent her from seeing it by first telling her that it is too old to
be handled, then that it has been lost while on loan, and that the file cannot
be accessed until fifty years after Zumtobel’s death. The law protecting Zumtobel until fifty years
after his death was changed specifically to prevent Sonya from getting the
file; she successfully battles the new law in court to change it back to its
original thirty-year period. The
archivist is obviously unwilling to cooperate in Sonya’s attempt to remember
the past. When Sonya confronts Professor
Juckenack about his involvement in Krakauer’s death, he threatens to sue her if
she makes his name publicly known in the scandal. He keeps his word when she unwillingly
releases it under pressure from the press.
He is so desperate to keep his reputation and hide his ugly past that he
resorts to blackmail to protect himself.
Sonya and her family receive threatening phone calls from many in the
community warning her to stop her research for her own good. They clearly do not want to be reminded of
their shady past, and do whatever they can to keep it secret. Some throw bombs in her house to try to
discourage her. The pharmacist even
refuses to provide medicine for her sick child.
The extent of the townspeople’s desire to maintain their forgetfulness
and their ignorance of the past is horrifying.
Clearly they do not want to admit their guilt and come to terms with
their actions.
In The Reader and “The Nasty Girl,” the
past is clearly a major influence on many people. Though many try to hide it or do not cope
with it effectively, it cannot be completely forgotten. In The
Reader, Michael says that Hanna’s hands smell of “the day and of work” even
though she has washed them (Schlink 197).
The traces of the past remain; they cannot be forgotten. This is clear throughout the two works. It is only by clearly acknowledging and
accepting one’s past that one can move on with his future.
Works Cited
Schlink,
Bernhard. The Reader.
“The Nasty Girl.”
Dir. Michael Verhoeven.
Videocassette.