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Hanna's Guilt Quotes

Decent Essays

Schlink explores that an individual's failure to overcome their guilt from the past causes further actions in the future which will result with more guilt. One's inability to control their thoughts influenced by the past impacts how the individual will act in the future. When Michael was at the pool with his friends and saw Hanna looking at him from a distance, he was not sure if she wanted to be seen with him or if he wanted to be seen with her, so he did nothing. This happened the day before Hanna's disappearance. The regrets from this is evident when Michael says "Even worse than my physical desire, was my sense of guilt. Why hadn't I jumped up immediately when she stood there and run to her!" Through the use of a rhetorical question, Schlink attempts to make the readers sympathise with why Michael would feel …show more content…

From this attachment of guilt from Hanna, Michael chooses to end his relationship with his wife instead of trying to make things work between the couple. This later harrows Michael as he alienated his daughter from the warmth and safety she needed and deserved and this is another source of Michael's guilt. Michael's negligence to defeat the guilt from Hanna continues to after Hanna's death. “In the first few years after Hanna’s death, I was tormented by the old questions of whether I had denied and betrayed her, whether I owed her something, whether I was guilty for having loved her. Sometimes I asked myself if I was responsible for her death.” In this quote, Schlink uses interior monologue to express how the results of Michael's past actions are influencing his thought process and what happens in his mind. From this, the reader is invited to think in the same way as Michael is and how it would be different if he was not guilty of what happened during his relationship with

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