Justification of Choice: Pre-Reading Analysis

Justification of choice: Pre-reading Analysis

1. What is/are the major historical theme/s, event/s, process/es, conditions or development/s studied in HOTA that you believe are related or relevant to this novel?

What is motivating us to read and analyze Michael Keneally's Schindler's List is a video we viewed in HOTA about the Holocaust, and Steven Spielberg's movie by the same name as the aforementioned novel. Both videos depict the atrocities committed by the Nazis against the Jews in World War 2. The debates and lectures conducted in HOTA also stimulated a desire to learn more in depth about details of what really occurred to individuals, as opposed to learning what occurred to the Jewish population as a whole. We believe that the Holocaust as a whole, which we studied in HOTA is the central theme, event and condition in the novel.

2. Which specific aspect of these elements do you believe relates to the course content of HOTA?

Since in HOTA we studied what occurred in the Jewish Ghettos and the number of people who died, not to mention the condition in which many Jews were living in during these times, it is our opinion that these aspects of the Holocaust relate to the course content of HOTA.

3. How would you expect such elements to impact or influence the life of central character's in the novel?

Since we have not yet read the novel, and we have no idea if it is similar to the film, we cannot be precise about these details, but since it is commonly known that the story is about a German who put himself at risk to save Jews when the rest of his people were trying to destroy them, it is probable that the living conditions of the holocaust were dangerously influencing his life since he was making unconventional decisions.

4. In what way might YOU be affected if you were living at this time, in this place, under these conditions?

We think that since we do not fit the Nazi's image of the perfect Aryans, with blonde hair, blue eyes, fair skin, and perfect noses, it is possible that we would have been submitted to the conditions the Jews were submitted to. On the other hand, since we have no Jewish blood, we might have been safe. Whatever the conditions we lived in, we would have been greatly affected to know that people were dying because of superficial reasons. If we would not have been affected physically, it is probable that we would have been affected mentally because the only way one could explain the Nazis motivation to murder so many people, is insanity, insanity caused by living in a time of complete and utter chaos.

5. In what ways do you believe that reading this novel will deepen your understanding of the corresponding areas of study in HOTA?

We believe that we will have a more detailed explanation of what life was really like for the victims of the Holocaust. This is because history is supposed to be very factual as opposed to a novel, which will very probably bring much more personal and humane issues and circumstances to light.

Basic Literature Analysis

1. What is the historical setting of the novel?

- The novel's action occurs during the years of the Holocaust in world war two, the latter years of the war to be more precise. The prologue of the book transports the reader to autumn 1943, where the story begins to unfold itself. The historical setting of the novel is the holocaust.

2. How does this setting generally influence the life and experience of the characters?

- Despite the fact that the different characters in the story are confronting different dilemmas, the holocaust negatively influences all the characters' lives, both Germans and Jews. Although, the German Nazis enjoyed a prominent period, their conduct in the holocaust during the war brought severe consequences to them, after the war was over. Many Jews were killed, or lived in fear of being killed.

3. What is the tone?

- The tone in the novel is factual. This is because the book is a collection of recollections of the situation different individuals were forced to confront, and they are all different, the only coherent narrarations that occur with the novel are the intrusions the author makes, to explain how he got specific facts, different views on something he has mentioned earlier and so on. This is done to emphasize that what is going on are not fictional recollections but true events indeed, therefore making the tone of the novel as a whole, factual.

4. Who are the central characters of the play and how are they depicted?

- Oskar Schindler: He is the central character of the novel. At the beginning the reader is informed that Schindler arrived to Krakow to make a fortune out of free labor, he was unfaithful to his wife in two occasions. He spent a large amount of money on cigars, alcohol and cars. He becomes the symbol of goodness and humanity. He saved more than 1, 100 Jews from being murdered by placing them in his labor camp, where they did not have to labor at all. He sacrificed his life and business and eventually went bankrupt.

- Emilie Schindler: Oskar Schindler's wife. Married him at a young age, and had to stand his infidelities. She, like her husband was very motivated and willed to help and protect and even nurse back to life the victims of the Holocaust. This was because; she saw one of her girlfriends, who was Jewish, brutally assassinated because of this. Emilie is depicted by the author as a kind soul who was very willing to help those in need, with much self restraint and tolerance for her husband who was unfaithful from beginning to end, who in the very end, left her in South America.

- Commandant Amon Goeth - SS second lieutenant who destroyed the Krakow ghetto. He symbolizes evil in the novel. Takes pride and joy in extinguishing Jews. He is very much like Schindler since they were both raised catholic and even studied the same subjects in school. The difference is however, that Goeth is physically abusive. He shoots Jews from the balcony of his villa which is located in front on barracks that hold Jewish prisoners; he beats his maid, known as Lena, whom he eventually loses to Schindler in a game of Black Jack.