Extra chapter from Fatelessness

Two weeks had passed since my father’s departure. Him not being around makes everything so different. My mother became over protective when he left, now she wouldn’t let me go out with Ana Marie, or any other friend. Now some nights I can hear the blasting of the German artillery. The explosions wake me up in the middle of the night, it’s really scary. I pray for the bombs to avoid my house, so we can be safe.

At day light I’ve got to work with Mr. Suto, at the …… He’s now in charge of the family business so authorities won’t take the place. They say that we are too impure to have our own business. But Mr. Suto is a good man, he doesn’t think in that things, he says that my family will always be the owner of the business, he is a very good man. He gives us everything we need to live, and I help him carrying some wood planks, and organizing them. It’s a hard work but is better than doing nothing all day long.

The thing I miss the most, is hanging out with my friends I haven’t had any new of what has happened to them. Maybe they are just like me, working at home or spending the day doing nothing, I don’t know. Probably Ane Marie is playing cards with her sisters as they use to do, before this war thing happened, before all this changes…

One day I was working with Mr. Suto as usual, when he told me to go to his office and take a finance clipboard for making some work stuff. I went up the stairs, up to my father’s office; it was enormous place with a big window where you could see the entire factory. There were some old wood furniture and at the center of the office, a huge desk with tons and tons of paper work. It took me like a minute to find the document I was looking for, but when I took the clipboard, a howl mountain of papers fell down to the ground. All does papers laying on the ground; it will take a century to organize them! I was astonished when I realize there was an unusual paper; it was a letter with a “farewell” written on the front. I open it and found this:

Mr. Suto:

My time has come, they have called me to the labor caps and there’s nothing I can do. I need you more than anyone right now, I need that you follow the plan we were talking about. Take the jewels I gave you and make my family safe. Take them out of Budapest before is too late, I will never let anyone harm them.

Follow the route we talked about, is the safer way out of Budapest. Please, do this as my last favor. Please…

             Georg Koves

I couldn’t understand why he was so eager to take as out of Budapest? Why did he mention a specific plan? All of this was to strange, extremely strange. The words of my father where in my head and I couldn’t let them out. Why Mr. Suto didn’t mention this letter? He should have sent this letter to my mother, but he keep it by himself. Maybe Mr. Suto wasn’t so good nature as we thought; maybe this was a plan so we couldn’t escape from the German invasion. He wanted to kill us! I needed to do something quickly; I took the letter and put it in my right pocket. Then I tried to dissimulate everything while I walk out of the office, but somehow he realizes I was plotting something. What are you doing? Are you making another of your mischief’s? Said Mr. Suto. I ignored him and follow my way strait to the house. As I was going out of the door he said: “it’s dangerous for you to walk home alone, I will go with you. That phrase scared the hell out of me. He was plotting to kill me, he wanted to kill me before told his plan to my family. When we have passed the door of the building, I started to run to my house. I was running at my maximum speed, strait home but as I was so eager to reach the doorstep I didn’t realize that in front of my, there was a garbage can. I crushed so hard that I was laying at the ground for about one minute. As I was trying to stand up, Mr. Suto helped me up and asked me why I was running. With the on my heart, I gave him the letter.

Mr. Suto the explained to me that my father’s plan was impossible to follow. German invasion had locked down the city and was too risky to escape. He thought that the best idea for now was to run low and hope Allies troops will take Budapest. He also told me that he didn’t want to give the letter to mom, because she was too hopeful of seen again my father and this will be like a stab at his heart.

So that’s what we make, we run low for about a week, hiding some resources at the house so if we had the opportunity we could escape.

Rationale:

I choose to make a new chapter of the book, because I thought it was the best way of expressing the feelings and emotions of the character. As this book is an autobiography, the author tells you exactly was he was feeling at that precise moment. Also this way of structuring my work is the “less invasive”, because it follows the same structure as the novel and doesn’t interfere with the ideas expressed in it.

At my written task, I mentioned elements present in the novel so it will be more realistic and doesn’t interfere with the main plot of the story. The “goods” from the Kovez family that were given to Mr. Suto previous of my work, play an essential role as part of a pre made plan for the Kovez family to escape from Budapest.

The context of my work is the Budapest invasion, of course, but it is centered at the advancing of the German troops over this place. At the written task I mention that the plan for escaping Budapest is now longer us full because of the mobilization of German troops over the city. Other elements of the war are present in this work as the idea of Jewish families to hide at their houses instead of trying to escape from their country.

Narrative Techniques

Summary of Literary Terms

Writing as the opposite sex

Writing is something inherent to humans; every person can write and should write. But one question comes to our mind; can a man write as a woman? (Or the other way round). The answer is very simple no.

Women will never "write as a man" because all men are different. The fact of asking, what a man would think? Is already wrong.

On the other hand one person can and should write a character of the opposite sex, but as an individual and not as the male/female stereotype.

The use of male author writing about female characters is very often. In fact there are many authors that use this technique as a tool for their books. An example would be: David Grossman at “Her Body Knows", Josefina Vicens at "The Empty Book" or Amos Oz's at "My Michael", etc…

Atonament

As we have being seen Atonament, here is a summary of the book.

In 1935, Briony Tallis, a 13-year-old girl from a wealthy English family, has just finished writing a play. As Briony attempts to stage the play with her cousins, she witnesses a significant moment of sexual tension between her older sister, Cecilia, and Robbie Turner, a servant's son, a man that Briony has a childish crush on. Robbie returns home and writes several drafts of letters to Cecilia, including one that is explicit and erotically charged. He does not, however, intend to send it and sets it aside. On his way to join the Tallis family celebration, Robbie asks Briony to deliver his letter, only to later realize that he has mistakenly given her the prurient draft. Briony secretly reads the letter and is simultaneously disgusted and jealous.

That evening, Cecilia and Robbie meet in the library, where they finally declare their love for one another and make love. During the act, Briony watches through the partially open door and her confused emotions about Robbie become heightened. At dinner it is revealed that the twin cousins have run away. Briony goes off alone into the woods looking for them and stumbles upon a man running away from apparently raping her teenage cousin Lola. Lola claims that she does not know the identity of her attacker, but in a fit of pique the still-wounded Briony tells everyone, including the police, that she saw Robbie commit the act. She shows Robbie's shocking letter to her mother. Everyone believes her story except for Cecilia. Robbie is arrested and sent to prison.

Four years later, Robbie is released from prison on condition that he joins the army, where he is shipped off to the French front and dies. Briony, now fully understanding the impact of her accusation,

Decades later, an elderly Briony reveals in an interview that she is dying of vascular dementia, and that her novel, Atonement, which she has been working on for most of her adult life, will be her last. Briony reveals that the book's ending where she apologised to Cecilia and Robbie is fictional. Cecilia and Robbie never saw each other again once he left for war. In reality, Robbie actually died at Dunkirk of septicemia while awaiting evacuation, and Cecilia died a few months later as one of the flood victims in theBalham tube station bombing during The Blitz. Briony hopes that, by reuniting them in fiction, she can give them the happy conclusion to their lives that they had always deserved. The last scene of the movie has Cecilia and Robbie once again together in what could be afterlife or a fictional plane of existence.

This book refers to an historical fact, the Dunkirk evacuation. I thought it might be adequate to add a brief reference of this operation.

The Dunkirk evacuation was the evacuation of Allied soldiers from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk, France, between 27 May and the early hours of 4 June 1940, because of the inminent lost at the Battle of Dunkirk in the Second World War. In a speech Winston Churchill called the events in France "a colossal military disaster", saying that "the whole root and core and brain of the British Army" had been stranded at Dunkirk and seemed about to perish or be captured. The British army thought it was a success, because they could rescue the majority of the soldiers that returned safely to England.

From 28-31 May 1940, an event known as the Siege of Lille involved the remaining 40,000 men of the once-formidable French First Army in a delaying action against seven German divisions, including three armored divisions, which were attempting to cut off and destroy the Allied armies at Dunkirk. According to Churchill, "These Frenchmen, under the gallant leadership of General Molinié, had for four critical days contained no less than seven German divisions which otherwise could have joined in the assaults on the Dunkirk perimeter. This was a splendid contribution to the escape of their more fortunate comrades of the BEF".

On the first day, only 7,011 men were evacuated, but by the ninth day, a total of 338,226 soldiers (198,229 British and 139,997 French) had been rescued by the hastily assembled fleet of 850 boats. Many of the troops were able to embark from the harbour's protective moleonto 42 British destroyers and other large ships, while others had to wade from the beaches toward the ships, waiting for hours to board, shoulder-deep in water. Others were ferried from the beaches to the larger ships, and thousands were carried back to Britain by the famous "little ships of Dunkirk", a flotilla of around 700 merchant marine boats, fishing boats, pleasure craft and Royal National Lifeboat Institution lifeboats—the smallest of which was the 14 ft 7 in (4.45 m) fishing boat Tamzine, now in the Imperial War Museum—whose civilian crews were called into service for the emergency. The "miracle of the little ships" remains a prominent folk memory in Britain. 

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Movie analyzing questions

Watch the first half of the 2007 movie adaptation of "Atonement". While you watch, take notes and answer the following questions:

1. What sort of social and cultural setting does the Tallis House create? What emotions and impulses are being acted upon or repressed by its inhabitants?

2. A passion for order, a lively imagination, and a desire for attention seem to be Briony's strongest traits. In what ways is she still a child? Is her narcissism - her inability to see things from any point of view but her own - unusual in a thirteen-year-old? 

3. Why does Briony stick to her "version of the story" with such unwavering commitment? Does she act entirely in error in a situation she is not old enough to understand, or does she act, in part, on an impulse of malice, revenge, or self-importance? 

4. As she grows older, Briony develops the empathy to realise what she has done to Cecilia and Robbie. How and why do you think she does this? 

Answers:

1-.  At Tallis house, they are very rich people (high culture status). This is way it is impossible the love of Robert and Cecilia. Also there’s anger repressed because of jealous.

2-. Briony has a lively imagination, so she creates her own “story” or version of what is happening. That’s in what she bases the idea that Robert was sexually attacking the residents of the house.

3-. I think that Briony acted for having revenge to Robbi, because she couldn’t have him. Also Robert didn’t pay much attention to her, transforming her desire of Robbi into hate. At the movie Briony says: “I know it was him” instead of I saw him.

4-. I think she realizes that what she has done has tremendously affected her sister and Briony starts to feel guilty.

"Exploring Fatelessness"

Introduction to Fatelessness

This period we will be Reading the book “Fatelessness”. This book written by Imre Kertész deals with the concepts of unknown future, and sadness of the Jewish population that were sent to de “labor camps”. This book also deals with the family rupture made by the German regimen, were Georg (protagonist) loses his father how is sent to concentration camps.

Image Analysis

 This image represents the feeling of the Jewish population of sadness of the old times. The man standing beside the fence has the same color of the death bodies at the back of him. This means that the man’s feelings and hope are now totally dead, his is “as good as dead” and he has accepted death. Also the fence represents the Nazi Party how are preventing him from freedom, and don’t letting him be as he was at the old times.

Task 1: Watch the following interview to Imre Kertesz and answer the questions below:

1. Before the interview, the presenter visits a monument to the Holocaust created by the American artist Peter Eiserman. Considering the shapes, architecture and general design, in what ways do you think he represents the reality in the concentration camps?

The monument of the holocaust represents the feeling of vulnerability that Jewish population had when sent to the concentration camps. There was nothing I they could do to escape, and every intent of escaping was suppressed with gun power.

2. Which is the paradox the presenter mentions regarding Imre Kertész and the place where he lives?

The paradox of Imre is that he was send to a concentration camp in Germany, were he suffered and lost a lot of his familiars. But this place, paradoxically is the only place were he can be safe.

3. Refer to anti-Semitism before and after Auschwitz according to Kertész.

The anti-Semitism are a group of people that wanted a new holocaust. They started after Aushwitz.

4. In what way do reminders of the past in historical books make us "much richer"?

The perspective every author haves is what makes richer every version of the holocaust.

5. Which metaphor does Imre use to exemplify the effect of FATELESSNESS on its readers?

If we don’t know about the past, it is probable that it will happen again. We need to learn of our mystiques.

P-E-E Structure

The PEE is a form of expressing ideas in an organized and structured way, using quotations. It consists in the Point(P), the Evidence(E) and the Explanation(E).

Point----- > Is the idea you want to express. This shall be summarized and precise.

Evidence---- > This is where you put the quote as an evidence for your point (idea). You should use quotation marks.

Explanation---- > This is where you explain de quote and contrast it to your point.



Here´s an Example for making everything clearer:

 
Point: Stanley was childish and innocent

Evidence: “Had tried to pretend that he was just going away to camp(…) Camp fun and Games he called it”.

Explanation: The author uses the word “pretend” to explain that this person creates his one reality. Alsou uses the idea of “Camp Fun”, transforming the work camp into this funny place where he would make a lot of friends.