SECTION 1 (pp. 124-35)
Focus on: the
power of a name
EVALUATE YOUR
RESPONSE ...
'Auschwitz' is first mentioned on p. 124. How do you react
to this name? What connotations does it carry?
RESEARCH AND
PRESENT . . .
— What do you know of the real
Auschwitz? Do some research. You might look at the Auschwitz museum at
http://www.auschwitz-muzeum.oswiecim.pl/html/. If you are in a group, it might
be useful to discuss and combine your knowledge.
ANALYSE ...
— Analyse the sentence, Auschwitz lay
around me ... like a somersaulted Vatican' (p. 124). What other Roman Catholic
images figure, and to what effect?
— What does 'preternatural purpose'
(pp. 124, 127, 128) mean to the narrator? Linked to the title of this chapter,
what does it mean to you?
Focus on:
cross-references
CONNECT AND
PREDICT . . .
— Connect the image of Unverdorben
donning black boots and white coat with previous allusions to this image
'(e.g., pp. 12, 48, 72). Given these and other clues that have been trailed
throughout the novel, predict what Unverdorben's crime has been.
Focus on:
irony and knowledge
TRACE AND
REACT ...
— The inversion of Young's life as a
doctor finds a shockingly dark counterpoint here. Trace the ironies on pp.
126—35, and gauge your reactions to them. These ironies depend on our having a
greater knowledge of what is really happening than the narrator. In what sense
does this technique highlight the collective human loss of innocence that the
Holocaust brought about?
Focus on:
beauty and ugliness
ANALYSE THE
LANGUAGE . . .
— Look at the description of the
doctor, 'Uncle Pepi', who was 'coldly beautiful, true, with self-delighted
eyes; graceful, chasteningly graceful in his athletic authority' (p. 127). What
ironic effects are created by these words in this context?
RECONCILE ...
— Bearing the above in mind, can you
reconcile the 'quest for greater elegance' (p. 128) among the guards at
Auschwitz with what they do?
Focus on:
coprocentricity
COMPARE . . .
— Why is there an emphasis on human
faeces? Part IV of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, a satire on the society of the day, was also full of it. Philip Pinkus,
in Sin and Satire in Swift (1965), writes:
"Since Swift's
constant concern in his satires is man's corruption from original innocence, there
is no more graphic illustration than the excremental. That is why his satires
are obsessed with it. It is the traditional imagery of evil, of which Swift's
contemporaries were well aware [...} All Swift's references to the unclean
flesh, the dung, the stench, the filth of man's body, are the symbols of man's
sin."
Does
excrement have a symbolic function here? If so, what does it symbolise?
SECTION 2 (pp. 135-45)
Focus on:
'the bomb baby'
INTERPRET THE
SYMBOL ...
— The narrator has alluded throughout
to the 'bomb baby' that exerts 'such power over its parents' (p. 135), and 'the
mortal importance of no one knowing they are there' (p. 101). See also
references to this idea on pp. 48, 55, 67. What does this dream image seem to
symbolise? Make what sense of it you can. It will be more clearly explained
later. What effects are created by these orders of unexplained images?
Focus on:
insane perspectives
COMPARE . . .
— The narrator's inverted perspective
has created a gap between what he says and what we understand. What he sees as
creative magic, we know to be a delirious account of insane destruction. But
when Herta confronts Unverdorben about ugly truths, the narrator's delusional
system of thought goes into overdrive, using insane inversions to justify
atrocities. He sees time backwards, of course, and cannot see straight: but by
this stage, is there anything to distinguish the insanity of the narrator's
inverted perspective from that of Unverdorben, or 'Uncle Pepi', or any of the
others who inhabit the world of forward time and are guilty of the crimes that
are described? Compare the delusional thought systems of the narrator and of
his human counterpart, Unverdorben.
Focus on:
Uncle Pepi'
COMMENT ...
— What more do we learn about 'Uncle
Pepi' in this section?
Consider in
particular the details that frame his portrait on pp. 136 and 144-5.
RESEARCH . .
.
— Research
the historical figure of Josef Mengele. Is 'Uncle Pepi' a fictionalised portrait of this man?
