I believe the whole class has wondered why we read such a
novel. It’s full of incest and rape and a million other things that just
generally make me sick to my stomach. But after careful reading with that
question in the back of my mind, I dare to venture a guess. The sentence
popped up in The Hour of Truth. Alba has been captured and is undergoing
indescribable tortures, to the point at which she decides to starve herself to
death rather than continue on in this hellish life. She decides to call for the
spirits of her ancestors, and Clara reveals herself. Rather than assisting Alba
in her suicide, Clara suggests that “the point was not to die, since death came
anyway, but to survive, which would be a miracle.”
While this is generally just an amazing statement in
general, it also brought up several similarities to Silence, Survival in
Auschwitz and Dawn. Each of their protagonists faced a time at which
they asked themselves the point of surviving. It’s a sensitive subject, but not
one that we as humans are unfamiliar with. Why continue living? For us, the
world is in turmoil at the moment, and I’m sure many people are wondering what
the point of living through it is. This profound, almost spiteful attitude of “I’m
going to live despite my circumstances,” is one that all of our protagonists have
come to – and one that weighs heavy on my mind.
Abbie
PS Commented on Hailey's and Ezra's
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