Tianqi Hu
ENG 1B
7/4/17
Essay U2B
In “The Reader” and “The Lives of Animals,” the two main heroines of their book/movie,
Hannah Schmitz and Elizabeth Costello, are despised because of their actions and their ethics.
Although they came from a different time and had different education, they’re both sincere and
plausible people. However, they have stronger belief and ethnic about their principles that isolate
themselves from everyone. As the reader, we have the ability to feel sympathy toward these
characters because their character is something that we could relate to and we can understand
their circumstances. There are many commonality and complexity between the two characters,
but Hannah is the one who is proven to be more engaging and deserve our sympathy.
Hannah and Elizabeth’s characters are logical and sincere, but because of their
characteristic; it pushes everyone away. An example would be Elizabeth’s ability to tell stories.
“She’s utterly sincere,” said Elizabeth’s son, “between her revulsion from eating meat… I have no
insight into my motives and I couldn’t care less. I just find it disgusting” (Coetzee 67).
Throughout the novel, Elizabeth compares the lives of animal and the Holocaust multiple times,
which lacked sympathy for the audience. During the trial, Hannah spoke truthfully about the fire
incident, but she didn’t understand why she was punished for complying for her duty. Hannah
said this, “What would you have done?” (Daldry 2008) and there was silence in the audience.
Hannah present a pseudo-philosophical argument to the judge just like Elizabeth did for not
eating snails. According to Sklar, readers can simulate the emotions or experiences of
characters in fiction in order to in some sense test them on their own lives…. We temporarily
“believe” in the reality of the fiction that we are reading, or, at the very least, regard fictional
characters as we would real individuals (ctd. Sklar 33). Throughout the movie, Hannah’s
behavior was consistent when the actress, Kate Winslet, presents the fear and shame of being
illiterate, which convince us, the audience, to believe that Hannah is real and sincere to have
“real” feelings. As we fill the gap of the past, we start to understand her as a person and figure
out her actions. Finally, we begin to feel sympathy towards her.
Hannah, and Elizabeth were the scapegoats of their novel/movie, the ones who would
take all the blame and fully accept them as their responsibility. Hannah was accused of killing
300 Jewish people because she did not open the church doors. The Nazi defendants also blamed
her for letting them die and writing the report. Furthermore, she took responsibility for the crime
because she felt ashamed to reveal that she was illiterate. “There’s no need; I wrote the report”
