SS soldiers guard a church whilst the church burns down with people inside.
Everyone dies in the fire except one woman who is there to give evidence in court.
The SS soldiers refuse to open the doors whilst everyone in there screams to be let out.
One woman who was the soldier saw her role as the guard. 'There would be chaos if they are all let out. How do we control the chaos?'
She is illiterate and ashamed of it.
What is there to understand?
I don't understand... but often people will "tow the line" because that can seem easier for atleast the short term.
"For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens 'as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone'" - David Cameron, UK Prime Minister. 13 May 2015.
What are your judgements on her, the SS soldier who is extremely ashamed of the fact that she is illiterate?
Is it petty to do bad things to hide the fact that you are ashamed?
What bad thing did she do to hide her illiteracy? I thought they were unlinked...
(Is being petty the same as being human?)
"For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens 'as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone'" - David Cameron, UK Prime Minister. 13 May 2015.
She was an SS guard.
She didn't open the doors when people were being burnt alive in a church.
There was a report being written about it.
All the other guards, pointed their fingers at her and said she wrote the report.
She couldn't have. She can't read or write.
When the judge asked her to write something, so that he can compare it to the book/report she had apparently written to clarify whether she was the author or not; she panicked.
Which resulted in her admitting that she wrote the report.
She also took the role as an SS guard when she got the promotion in her everyday job because she was afraid that the promotion would require education.
Why could being petty be the same as being a Human?
Don't you see pettiness as a human thing?
Now that set of events does ask questions about her - why was being illiterate seen as so shameful that she would admit to being responsible for murder? the real world can be confusing with different people holding different things near and dear to them.
"For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens 'as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone'" - David Cameron, UK Prime Minister. 13 May 2015.
Yeah, I'm thinking the same thing. Who cares who wrote the report and who can or can't read. Isn't trapping people inside a burning building a little more fundamental than ABC?
Gentleness and kindness were never a part of anything except that it made it beautiful, and harshness was never a part of anything except that it made it ugly.
Through cheating, stealing, and lying, one may get required results but finally one becomes
I don't know. It doesn't seem like such a big deal to us. But it was obviously a big deal to her.
She was comparing herself to the boy, I think.
One minute she would admire how he would come and READ to her (it was an all new world for her), but then there's the sense of jealousy/pride/I-don't-know-what-exactly... "That could have been me" (Not strictly envy)
and I think it was partly because of the boy and her relationship ship Or is that a too obvious thing?
The rest of the guilty ladies were "proud" of what they did except Hannah. Also, I get this feeling that she did all that on purpose but not to hide the fact that she was illiterate though.
I liked the recording machine. Aesthetic survival. I love audio books : )
And later Hannah educates herself, now there's satisfaction and the grown boy, was he "educating" her?
As to why she didn't help the people in the burning church, it wasn't up to her to do it alone. Imagine, if a group of you plan to jump off a cliff and then your plan changes to jumping in a well instead, would you jump alone? She would have been shot by other guards if she had tried to help them. Chaos.
I may have been too obvious in my observations so forgive me for that error.
- I don't think she was comparing herself to the boy. I don't think the relationship she had with the boy mattered to her as much as it mattered to him. For her, he was just 'available'. She never had an education, so...listening to Michael read..was satisfying for her.
- I don't think her relationship with the boy mattered to her enough for it to do anything either. If he didn't keep coming back, she wouldn't have cared less is the impression that I got. Apart from the reading.
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Why did you think she murdered lots of people on purpose?
Didn't you at any point get the impression that she was caring?
I don't think she murdered all those people on purpose. I just think like all the other soldiers, that she was in a different mindset. She was someone she didn't recognise afterwards. Aren't most soldiers in a different mindset when they are at war? When they are following orders? When they have their own punishments if they don't follow the orders given?
- I think Michael as a grown up, was disturbed by the past. If he never saw Hanna again in court...it wouldn't have mattered so much. He still loved her. Also, if you remember in the middle ... when he was a law student..he knew exactly why Hanna owned to writing that report..because she couldn't read or write. He figured out that because she was ashamed she would rather own up to doing something she didn't. His tutor also told him, that he should do something with this knowledge. But he didn't. He backed out from seeing her.
Do you think that he felt..guilty..that her punishment could have been the same as the others if he had done something about it?
A reason for why he read to her through audio books?
Nooo...:(