Harry Mulischs The Assault - Essay Example

? Harry Mulisch’s “The Assault” Introduction The novel “The Assault” by Harry Mulisch is a masterful piece of creative work of this outstanding and famous writer. It is interesting not only to follow the realistic events described in the novel, but also to focus on the main characters of the book, who are acting as “agents” of their own lives. The writing manner of the author is worth-discussing and worth-studying. The main characters’ decisiveness, strength, emotional stability and purity of mind inspire readers due to author’s outstanding writing manner. The character of Anton Steenwijk's and episodes of his life are described by Mulisch. Further on, we will discuss this character and consider him as an agent of his own life. Anton Steenwijk's life The life on Anton’s family in Amsterdam during postwar period scares modern readers by reality of depicted events and hardships of that period of history. The boy’s family dies, when Germans return to Amsterdam. The boy experiences life challenge. He feels the assault of his life episode happened to him in 1942 and now in 1952 he feels this bitter taste of a drastic personal experience. He returns to the place, where his family was killed. Nevertheless, his past echoes to him in 1956 when he comes across his classmate Fake Ploeg Jr. The events of evening 1942 have perverted the life of Ploeg as well. The family of the boy was also murdered by Nazis and the boy felt the same degree of sorrow and emotional wound, as Anton did. Ten years after this incident, Anton meets a man, who took part in the assault on Ploeg. On the one hand, Anton has started a new life, he became the anesthesiologist and got married, but his inner world is being destructed by the drastic reminiscences from the past. Only in 1981 Anton reveals the secret of the assault of 1942 and finds out why Ploeg's body was moved in front of the Steenwijk house. Mulisch character’s development Therefore, we can see that the author of the book intended to show the anthology of events of postwar period and to underline a drastic destruction caused by Nazis inhumane deeds. “It was January, nineteen forty-five. Almost all of Europe had been liberated and was once more rejoicing, eating, drinking, making love, and beginning to forget the War. But every day Haarlem looked more like one of those spent grey clinkers that they used to take out of the stove, when there had still been coal to burn" (Mulisch 1987 p. 9). Moreover, the author selected episodes from Anton’s life, which happened during times of important events for the Dutch society. For example, Mulisch describes the events in Budapest in 1956; the release of Willy Lages (head of the Gestapo in Holland); anti-nuclear protests in 1981 (Van Galen Last and Wolfswinkel, 1996 Van Galen Last and Wolfswinkel, 1996). All these described periods were challenging for the Dutch’s society. Therefore, Mulisch makes an attempt to show a difficult inner struggle of his characters, to show a difficulty of their choices concerning right and wrong actions, to show an individual’s development on the background of important historical events and at the same time to underline a life-long burden imposed on an individual by fascism. Anton’s character development In accordance with a well-known claim: “…as we get older, a certain episode from our youth will gather around itself, like a pearl growing in its shell, greater and greater significance, until one day we realize that this episode has determined our life’s course, that all along it contained the seeds of our fate” (Van Galen Last and Wolfswinkel, 1996). Thus, like many other authors, Mulisch has followed this claim and like Proust, whose main character realized the importance of the peal of the bell on a garden gate outside his summer home in Combray (In Search of the Lost Time), showed that Anton would finally realize drastic events happened in his youth only after several decades. We can correlate this literary device with the Proust’s narrator, but Anton discovers an awful pain, an inner turmoil and this drastic episode from his youth is helping Anton to reveal the secret of mystery happened to him. "Even before the catastrophe occurred, Anton used to think that Carefree meant a place where cares entered freely, not a place free from cares; just as someone could think priceless meant without cost, rather than beyond price" (Mulisch 1987, p. 3). Moreover, Mulisch employs literary techniques, which may seem close to Kafka’s manner of writing: when Anton sees Nazis entering their house, he does not see them clearly. These men are illusive images in the light. Like Kafka’s characters, which are constantly resided in horrors of their imagined worlds, Anton’s actions are hampered by his inability to make a right and quick decision. This can be explained by his young age and immaturity. Therefore, the events described by Kafka in The Trial are events of a nightmare and events happening in the book by Mulisch refer to the real events, which are even more scaring than the nightmare. Anton cannot believe in drastic events happening to his house: “Was it believable, this thing happening here?” (Mulisch 1987, p. 134). Anton is positioned as a man struggling with the past. The challenges of post war period are essential hardships for Anton, but he believes in restoration of peace in his native land and in his mind. When Anton returns to Haarlem, he sees that nothing had really changed. It may seem, like Anton considers a drastic mask has gone from the face of his native land, horrors have remained in the past and only “meadows, cows and nature” have remained the same. Mulisch is a master of relating horror and beauty. He is a masterful writer of dissonance. For example, when Anton’s brother is writing an essay about Illiad before the night of assault, he compares echoes of nature with echoes of soldiers in the battle. The father is astonished by such an apt comparison and says that Homer wanted to say that “all of existence is a metaphor for another reality, and that the whole point is to grasp that other reality” (Mulisch 1987, p. 21). The other reality is the War, in such a way Peter summarizes his father’s explanation. This scene prepares readers for further existence of life events and events of war. In other words, an individual has to live through challenges and hardships and remain firm stand (Van Galen Last and Wolfswinkel, 1996). Therefore, not only Anton, but also other members of the family feel that some strange and inevitable events may come. “Then the other reality must be the War,” said Peter and it is scaring that a small boy talking about war in such a calm and realistic manner. At this point we can remember of Sebald’s writings in Austerliz. The survivor is described by Sebald as a raccoon, where he justified the necessity of escaping reality if it is too hard for a survivor (Van Galen Last and Wolfswinkel, 1996). Both Mulisch and Sebald are describing their characters as individuals, who are subjected to daily carrying of the post war reminiscences’ burden. The Nazi era is destructive for an individual, but at the same time this hard period may evoke a spirit of a survivor. Anton had always returned to the ideas about the dreadful events of that evening, but he continued to live his own life and to work. Nevertheless, it is evident that Anton cannot realize the reality of postwar cruelties. Being a boy, he was sitting and watching the boats in a canal. It seemed to him that he was able to reveal a secret of boats’ floating in the canal, but every time the pattern was too hard for him. Still, Anton in spite of his ability to think profoundly about different matters is not positioned as a passive character. There is a similarity of the days he is living through, they seem to be a chain of tragic reminiscences for him, but this feature of his character describes him as a deep psychological character. Moreover, this psychological state of the character leads him to a choice of his profession, an anesthesiologist. He wanted to make patients forget about their pain and health problems and just make them sleep. They have no ability to remember of their pain and at this moment Anton envies to them. Therefore, this character intentionally returns to his drastic reminiscences and Mulisch describes this peculiarity in the following way:          ". . . And in this sense Anton Steenwijk was a Greek. He stood with his back to the future and his face to the past" (Mulisch 1987, p. 151). Still, Anton realizes a necessity to live and to act and in the future his personality goes through the number of changes. For example, this dramatic agent came across people or events, which were connected with his past. Then, when he comes back to his home town he sees a monument to his family. Other characters, Fake Ploeg and Cor Takes are connected with his past as well. Conclusion As far as we can see, Anton is an acting agent of his life, still he has too complicated emotional state and carries a burden of drastic reminiscences about war. Such emotional state is very typical for people who went through war. Every time Anton intends to fight with his past, but he also wants to integrate reminiscences from his past with the current events. Consequently, Mulisch established certain moral and psychological limits for Anton’s development. Moreover, the plot line of the novel depends on the psychological and emotional state of Anton, his inner development and acting. It is possible to change one’s life through acting, but it is impossible to reload dreadful memories in our minds. Works cited 1. Mulisch, Harry. The Assault. Pantheon, 1986. 2. Van Galen Last, Dick and Wolfswinkel, Rolf. Anne Frank and After: Dutch Holocaust Literature in Historical Perspective. Amsterdam University Press, 1996. Read More