The Reader & Shame

I read the book The Reader LONG before a movie was in the making.

CAUTION:  Spoiler Alert.  If you haven’t seen the movie or read the book, you may not want to know the details I’m going to talk about.  Just click away!

I remember being shocked when I found out, at the same time Michael did, that Hanna was illiterate.  She had done unspeakable things in the Nazi camps, but the shame of her illiteracy was far greater than the shame for her participation in the killing of Jews.

Shame is a theme that permeates the entire movie, and it shapes the choices the characters make.

Hanna has shame that she cannot read, and goes to great length to conceal it.  She winds up works for the SS because she quits a job rather than take a promotion and be ashamed when illiteracy is discovered.  She “admits” to planning a strategy to exterminate Jews in the concentration camps,rather than providing a writing sample and being subjected to the shame of illiteracy.  And finally, it is true shame, for her behavior in the camps, that leads her to suicide.

Michael also has his share of shame, beginning with his affair with Hanna at the age of 15.  He then experiences shame that he knows a Nazi war criminal, shame at the things she did in the camp, and finally shame that she seems to feel little remorse for her actions.  His shame (that he did not intervene and provide information that would have helped her at trial) is assuaged by his reading and send her tapes of books.  He feels less like he has abandoned her this way.  After Hanna’s suicide, his shame is greater as he realizes how much more he could have done for her.

Any therapist worth their salt would tell clients that shame is a negative and unhealthy emotion to operate with.  It is insidious in its destruction, and little good can ever come of it.  If you had any doubt of that principle, this movie drives it home.

I think most people have had bouts with shame, to some degree or another.  Far better to come to terms with our actions and process them, than to live with a shame death sentence hanging over us.

Let’s all leave shame behind us.

Photo credit:  Amazon

Do You Have Doubt?

I’m still catching up on movies from this past Academy Award season, and most recently I watches Doubt, starring Meryl Streep, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams.

The story is set in 1964, at a Catholic school that has accepted it first African-American student.  This young boy serves as an altar boy to the friendly, and religiously progressive, Father Flynn.

After noticing that Father Flynn appears to be paying a great deal of attention to the boy, young Sister James mentions it to the tough-as-nails school principal, Sister Aloysius.  If you were raised Catholic during this time frame, you probably knew a version of Sister Aloysius.

Seeing the circumstances as an opportunity to push Father Flynn out of the parish and school, sister Aloysius sets out to destroy the priest.  Is her zeal justified as she fights fiercely to protect a student, or is she blinded to the truth by her refusal to change as the world changes around her?

Ultimately the viewer is left to wrestle with that question, and to decide which interpretation is beyond doubt.

What do you think?  Who do you believe, and why?  Do you have any doubts?

Photo credit: Amazon