The Reader, 책 읽어주는 남자

Being Bounded in the Past

A Reflection Paper on the Film “The Reader”

Our past, whatever we have done, or did not do, inevitably affects our present and future. We are free how or how to remember, including the choice to forgive ourselves and others, knowing that these choices will in turn have their own consequences. Memory is very interesting thing. What we have done and experienced remains within our brain, as what we call ‘memory,’ and endlessly intervenes our present life, including the choices we make and the actions we take. Especially the experience with strong impacts, whether of a joy or sorrow, becomes stronger memory and intervenes 

What makes the memory more interesting is that, fortunately or unfortunately, human beings often alter their memories in favor of themselves. We share same memories with others, but we cannot say that we share the ‘exactly same’ memories with them; when a group of people experiences the same event, the how to and what to remember from that experience differ from one another. We, consciously or unconsciously, select how to and what to keep as the memory.

Moreover, the memory, can be called as our past, influences our present or future life in various aspects; how we are today and how we will be tomorrow are shaped, or at least influenced, by what we did or did not do yesterday. However, the degree of that influence differs greatly according to one’s attitude towards one’s own past. Person, who admits the past as it is and proceed, will not be bounded in the past, while the person, who bounds himself in the past, will be heavily limited by his own past.

In the film, The Reader, Hanna and Michael share the same past; they experienced the same consequence of the events. However, how Hanna remembers that experience is different from how Michael remembers that same event. Not only how they interpreted the experience and how they remembered, how they are facing that memory is very different as well. Furthermore, both Hanna and Michael are greatly bounded and limited in the past throughout the film.

To discuss further, let’s see how their memory differs from the very start of the film.

They meet in the street on the midst of gloomy rainy day. They have sexual relationship several times even without knowing each other’s name. Hanna asks Michael to read some books, so he read books, such as Odyssey, to her. Yes, they were in love; but do the love that Hanna has towards Michael and the love that Michael has towards Hanna the same? The answer is no. It can be assumed that Michael’s is a pure love while Hanna’s is somehow materialistic. For the first few meetings, she considers Michael as a partner to resolve her lust; throughout the whole film, she never calls him by his name, instead, uses a ‘kid’. Furthermore, on their second encounter, Michael expresses his emotion by saying “You are so beautiful,” while Hanna stays monotonous and dry by saying “What are you talking about?” However, as they continue to meet and read books, their love develops into true love.

Then all of a sudden, Hanna leaves Michael. It’s because she was promoted to the office work, and she does not want to reveal her illiteracy. Yet they were in love, but Hanna leaves Michael because her willingness to hide her shame, illiteracy, is a bigger burden for her than the love towards Michael. Leaving of Hanna leaves a great influence on Michael’s life; the experience of being abandoned remains to his mind as a trauma and intervenes his life unconsciously. He never opens his mind towards others. He even fails in his own marriage.

After decades, Michael encounters with Hanna in the court, Hanna as the defendant and Michael as the observer. Hannah, and other defendants, were accused in the Holocaust crime for letting Jews to be burned in the fire as the Nazi. While others are so busy denying their deeds, Hanna just admits that she did, together with the other defendants, just because it’s their duty as the prison guards to not let people out of the jail. Here, uniqueness of Hanna reveals; Hanna is illiteracy, therefore somehow ignorant, and pure as a child. She does not understand or realize at all what her behavior means, and what the consequences are. She could had avoided the life sentence if only her illiteracy was revealed; however, she does not tell that she is illiterate. Her illiteracy bounds her again.

While Hanna is fighting alone in the court, Michael is stunned in the observer’s seat, recalling to the past and realizing that Hanna is illiterate. Knowing that she is illiterate, Michael becomes the only one witness and he comes into the inner conflict; should he ‘forgive’ her or not, should he reveal the fact to save Hanna, or conceal it to respect Hanna’s choice? Michael chooses the latter one.

After 8 years, Michael starts to send the tape recorded the voice of himself reading the books, as how he did when they were young and happy being together. The first tape is ‘Odyssey’; the theme of Odyssey is the permanent return, the decisive return. For Hanna, the tapes become the only one hope, joy, and tunnel of communication.

However, Michael actually is doing this for himself; recording and sending the tapes is the expression of his wish to go back to the past. He never sends the tapes to cheer Hanna up. He, after experiencing several failures in love, sends the tapes as the form of a struggle to go back to that period when he was happy reading books and having sex. 

Odyssey, asides from permanent return, has another theme: time that has passed by already never returns. After 10 years of traveling, what waited Odysseus is not the same Itacha as he remembered and expected to be, but a whole new Itacha which gradually changed for last 10 years. However, Michael, bounded by his own past and love, is obsessed in ‘returning of the time,’ ‘going back to the past’ by repeating his behavior, which is to read the books to Hanna. Whom he loves is not Hanna in present, but Hanna in the past which remained in his mind.

Meanwhile, Hanna, considering the tapes as the only tunnel of communication with the world, studies ‘letters,’ how to read and write by herself. When Hanna becomes able to write a letter, she sends a letter to Michael; however, Michael does not reply to that letter while keep on sending the tapes. When he receives her letters, his face is very complicated; it is of happiness, at the same time, of shock and confusion. For Michael, he loves and sends the tapes to the Hanna who is literate, not the Hanna who is not literate and accused for the Holocaust crime. In other words, Michael, who tried to communicate with his own past by using ‘past Hanna’ as the medium, cannot reply to the letters sent by ‘present Hanna,’ who is no longer illiterate, who no longer exist in his own past.

When Michael finally encounters Hanna face to face, he is stunned in shock facing with the ‘present Hanna,’ or the present that he avoided so much. He shakes off Hanna’s hand, treats her in a businesslike manner, speaks in monotonous and dry tone, and touches her painful memory, during the Nazi period and the trial. He struggles between the gap of his past and his present.

Hanna was also bounded in the past; she tries to stay in the past and feels like that her relationship with Michael has no changed at all. She sends a letter written “Give me more romance,” showing that she still loves him and assumes that he also still loves her. Moreover, she treats Michael same as before by calling him ‘kid’ as how she did during the past.

During the visit, Michael asks how she feels about her ‘crime,’ then Hanna answers “It doesn’t matter what I feel. It doesn’t matter what I think. The dead are still dead.” Hanna’s mind is just full of past memories with Michael, not even trying to know why she got sentenced, why Jews were killed, and what happened during the Holocaust although she is not illiterate any more.

After Hanna’s suicide, he finally realizes the ‘present’ and face the present directly; just after when he lost his wife and Hanna. It was too late to realize that Michael also loved Hanna who is literate; he realizes that his mind, blinded by the past memories, hid his love towards Hanna and eventually caused Hanna to commit suicide. Moreover, Hanna chooses to die after facing the present. 

Ultimately, two of them were so obsessed and tied up in the past, without even knowing that the obsession is drowning them to death and driving their current relationship to the end. Like them, being tied up in the past limits our life greatly. Those who are bounded by past are oneiric and unrealistic though they live in the real world. What we have to be aware is that we should not confront our past with an erroneous sense like them. Past should let us proceed further; it should not restrain our present and future.