Michael Berg had a big secret, which the movie seems to suggest as the reason for his aloofness throughout his life. Michael first met Hanna in 1958, when he was fifteen, she thirty-six. The two had a summer long love affair, dictated by Hanna that their encounters would begin with him reading novels and plays to her followed by lovemaking. Michael next encountered Hanna in 1966, when Michael, now a law student, attended the Nazi war crimes trial of five female former S.S. concentration camp guards, one of whom is Hanna. Through listening to the testimony, Michael comes to the realization that he is in possession of information which could save Hanna from a life in prison, information which she herself is unwilling to disclose, due to her shame. The other four female S.S. concentration camp guards claimed that Hanna was their leader and wrote the incriminating document that indicated a clear intention to not let the Jews out when the building was on fire. Hanna desperately protested that she was not the leader and nor the one that wrote that document. But then the court asked to see a sample of her handwriting by presenting a pen and a piece of paper, she froze. That was when Michael remembered the many small things that did not catch his attention during their summer love affair – Hanna was illiterate. She could not read or write! Faced with the humiliation of revealing this secret, Hanna said, “there is no need. I wrote it.” As a result, while the other four guards got very light prison sentences, Hanna got life in prison. Michael thought about convincing Hanna to tell the truth, but changed his mind and never saw Hanna before her sentence. Years later, he started sending tapes of his own recording of those books that he used to read to Hanna. With these tapes and the books from the prison library, Hanna finally learned to read. After twenty years in prison, Hanna was about to be released. While prison might have been the last place Hanna wanted to be when she was on trial, she now could not bear the thought of living outside of the prison – she committed suicide instead, and left all her money (she had very little money of course) to the girl who survived that fire, who now had grown into a middle-aged woman, living in opulence in Manhattan.
So what are we supposed to learn from it? Even people who have done terrible things could be gentle and loving to others? What is justice really? – Hanna’s ignorance led to her taking a job as a prison guard, because it’s a job that would not reveal her illiteracy to anyone, but she paid so dearly for it afterwards. Those other four female guards were certainly more evil and conniving, and yet they got away with light sentences, leaving Hanna to shoulder the blame for all. History is indeed ironic. It was not a coincident that Hanna’s cell where she hanged herself in the end was contrasted with the luxurious penthouse apartment of the Jewish woman who was the little girl surviving the fire.
What I find most disturbing is the part that Michael decided not to even persuade Hanna to tell the truth that she’s illiterate, which would automatically lighten her sentence dramatically to perhaps below even what the other four women got. After all, she was a victim of the other four women guards too! I talked to my husband (whose name is also Michael!) about it, and he said that it was the right decision, because Hanna made it clear that she would rather stay in prison forever than to reveal her illiteracy in public. Granted, it made her look stupid by choosing the “worse” fate, but only she could be the judge, even if the entire world thinks that she’s crazy to do so.
Michael Berg clearly cared for Hanna. While he was horrified to learn of her callous behaviors towards the Jews, he certainly did not want Hanna to be unfairly punished. But at the same time, no matter how stupid he thought Hanna was (and she really was stupid) in hiding her illiteracy, he realized that there was no use convincing an adult (and a very stubborn one also) that she made the wrong decision. If someone (like Hanna) wants to be a tragic figure, the rest of us will have to let her, even if we care about her. It takes extraordinary endurance and strength to go through this trial and twenty years in prison, but all this was necessitated by Hanna’s extreme weakness and fear – fear of letting people know that she was illiterate! Surely all of us would choose to claim illiteracy (even if we are not!) in order to get out of a prison sentence!!! Imagine, just imagine if she could stomach the few minutes of public humiliation when she revealed her illiteracy in court – the rest of her life would have been so much easier and better. Instead of being hated for being a Nazi, she would be considered just ignorant and used by others. She might have even been given a chance to learn to read/write in the very few years of prison sentence she would have received. But for her, she could not see or imagine the green horizon beyond this first painful step of revealing her shameful secret – so she would rather live her life in prison (which in a way is perhaps more shameful than being illiterate)…
In our own lives, even if the stories are not nearly as dramatic, haven’t we all experienced great torment when we realize that we cannot make someone do what’s best for him or her, if we care about that person? Of course, in many cases, what is better and what is worse are really rather subjective and ambiguous. But in some cases (like in Hanna’s case), it was very clear what was best for her, but she refused that choice. If we happen to care for someone who would make such a choice, can we all simply let that person go down that pathway, without feeling a nagging self-reproach that we could have made a difference, if only we tried hard enough, at the risk of even being hated by that very same person…
Hanna’s tragedy did not stop only at going to prison for most of her life. In fact, her life proved a tragic point – human beings have a way to rationalize that their choices are the right ones, even if they are the wrong ones to start with. If Michael Berg asked Hanna if she regretted her choice after her twenty years in prison, she would have said no for sure. While prison life to many seems so atrocious, Hanna not only got used to it, but also could no longer live without it, when it’s her time to get out of the prison after twenty years. So she committed suicide instead, because death was less scary to her then than living in a totally foreign world. – Again, who is to argue with her that she’s wrong if that’s how she felt?
As I am writing this, I am expecting a baby boy. I care so passionately about a lot of things, that I have no doubt that I will care passionately for my son. A friend recently told me of his regret of letting his son make too many decisions on his own during his early teens, even when he was not wise enough to make all these important decisions. I reassured him that it was no big deal, and besides, what’s the chance of the teenage boy listening to him and following his advice anyways?
Still, after watching “The Reader”, I am now even more acutely aware of the possibility that I will see people whom I love do things that in my opinion (and often in most people’s opinions) hurt themselves dearly. But as long as they are adults, the best thing for me to do is to do and say nothing. If I were to attempt to change their minds, they would not only go out of their way to prove themselves right (which could hurt themselves even more), but also resent me for questioning their decision.
With my own son, will I be able to adopt this attitude when he’s grown up? After devoting so much time, energy and love to someone as he’s growing up, if he were to do something really bad and stupid for himself, I guess I will have to let him figure out himself. And he might never figure out either. After all, Hanna never regretted keeping her secret at the court, even though in reality, the people in the court thought worse of her as the author of that incriminating document than if they had discovered her illiterate – she herself decided that she could not handle that splitting second of public shame, so she’s willing to cover it up with a whole life.
Indeed, extraordinary strength and extraordinary weakness often go hand in hand. Were it not for Hanna’s extreme fear of shame, she would not have to endure so much. Perhaps to the rest of us, it’s obvious what we would have chosen instead, so that we are neither victims of extreme fear, insecurity or shame, nor do we need to resort to the extraordinary German pride, British stoicism or Chinese/Jewish discipline required to cope with such an awful situation.
Maybe to sum up what I have learned from “The Reader”, it is merely the following: don’t be a Hanna, but don’t object if anyone else wants to be, even if that person is dear to you. That translates into – live a good and smart life, but don’t object if others don’t, either for lack of intention or lack of wisdom.
