Understanding Disunity in Text through Deconstruction Online Tutoring
Introduction
Today’s children live in a world that is rapidly changing. For this reason, researchers believe that children’s literature is a goal-oriented genre which is essentially didactic in nature (Chamburidze, 2012). It educates children towards what is right and develops children’s personalities through fiction. The Book Thief (2016) by Markus Zusak is no different. Setting the story in troubled Germany of the Nazi era and having the central character as a child (Liesel), who struggles and matures through the events into a brave woman, Zusak told the story of survival, bravery and perseverance.
This essay attempts to read a specific chapter of this book to deconstruct it against its own constructed structure. It will identify the binaries created in the chapter, recognize the centre around which these binaries function and observe how the structure collapses when the text is closely read. Thereby, this essay also points towards the multiplicities of meaning embedded in the text to show how it is disjoined and disunited without its centre. The observations and arguments will solely be based on this particular chapter from the book: ‘The Woman with the Iron Fist’ (pp. 37-46).
Dissecting the Structure
The Binaries
Binaries, or opposites, are systems of thought that co-exist in pairs within any mega-system, be it philosophy or literature. It has its roots in Saussure’s theories of structuralism, where the theorist maintained that binary oppositions reciprocate each other and help keep the structure steady (Putri and Sarwoto, 2016). In the book, The Book Thief, not only are binary oppositions the author’s own way of presenting his work, but they are also one of the literary strategies commonly used in texts to help readers grasp the intended meaning of the work or to allow them their own interpretations. According to Saussure, binary oppositions are indeed concepts that govern the human mind and its way of thinking. Another structuralist anthropologist, Lévi-Strauss (1969), also highlighted how the units within a structure combine themselves in relative pairs (as binaries). Strauss even discussed the importance of binary oppositions in shaping human institutions and knowledge.
The chapter from the book that has been chosen for discussion in this essay, ‘The Woman with the Iron Fist’, is full of such binary oppositions. The binaries identified in this chapter are:
- Death, Hopelessness / Life, Hope
- Harshness / Kindness
- Music / Noise
- Safety / Insecurity or Day / Evening
- Illiteracy / Knowledge
- Mundane / Spiritual or Imaginative
Death and hopelessness is captured in Liesel’s nightmares of her brother’s death, the daily visions she has during sleep and the agony she experiences – “She would wake up swimming in her bed, screaming and drowning in the flood of sheets”. In contrast, Hans Hubermann, her foster father represents hope and a sign of life for Liesel. Every night, he came to Liesel “to soother her, to love her” and “to kill the aloneness”.
Harshness and kindness is stark in the chapter, represented by the protagonist Liesel’s foster parents. While Hans is an epitome of kindness, his wife Rosa is “constantly arguing and complaining”, abiding by her “favourite theme of abuse”.
The couple also create binary opposites in terms of their sensibilities – while Rosa is “raucous”, Hans is musical, who “made the accordion live” every morning. He was also a painter, an artist, in sharp contrast to the loud disposition of his wife.
Hans’ fondness for music, his accordion playing is also an “announcement of safety” for Liesel. She feels excited when Hans brings the accordion and starts playing it. It seems to save Liesel from many a miseries, both past and present. Liesel’s past losses (separation from mother and death of brother) haunts her and her present school is also “a terrific misery” because she is a Lutheran and also illiterate. Liesel feels safe around Hans, which is mostly during the day. As evening sets and Hans leaves with his accordion, Liesel is compelled to stay with Rosa and forced to do chores which she otherwise would not have. These binaries of safety/insecurity or day/night have been intentionally constructed by Zusak in this chapter.
The binary of illiteracy and knowledge is also subtly placed when an illiterate girl steals books and is eager to read and write. She goes to school, but is “cast down with the younger kids” because she cannot read or write. However, in her stolen book, she would often keep “staring at the letters on the cover and touching the print inside”.
The mundane/spiritual binary opposition is created in Liesel’s activity associations with Rosa and Hans. While Rosa engages her in mundane chores like picking up laundry and cleaning the spit on the front door every day, Hans is a channel for her to unleash her spiritual and imaginative side – the “sound of the accordion” every morning and the silent walks to the BDM headquarters every Wednesday and Saturday just holding hands and listening to their feet are deep moments of reflection for Liesel.
The Centre
If there are binaries, there must also be a central point at which these binaries connect and unite. As Klages (2006) mentioned, “The structure of the binary opposition, and the fact that one side of a binary only has meaning in relation to the other side, to its opposite, means that every system posits a center, a place from which the whole system comes and which regulates the system.” All the binaries identified above in the particular chapter of Zusak’s book, also converge at one centre. That centre is Liesel’s struggle for survival.
She is a young girl and the protagonist of the book, growing up in Nazi Germany. Therefore, at every point in her life, she is met with challenges and crisis, which she learns to face and overcome one by one. Right from the opening sentence of this chapter, Liesel’s struggles for survival are conveyed – the “first few months were definitely the hardest.” This also means that the following months were hard; only that she got used to it or learnt to deal with it.
Liesel’s struggle for survival is the central point as it gives its readers, especially children, a character to relate to, a character who they can look up to as braving against the odds. As Johnson (2014) notes, children’s literature has a bigger goal apart from delivering the elementary benefit of pleasure. Reading about another person’s life, viewpoint and circumstances, develops knowledge and understanding (Johnson, 2014).
The underlying cultural assumption in the excerpt is that man (Hans) is superior to the woman (Rosa). During the Third Reich in Germany, Hitler considered women to nurture families whereas men were supposed to protect them and this was “the natural order” (BBC, n.d.). Culturally then, a man was assigned a privileged social role compared to a woman and had a positive presence, stereotypically speaking. Depicting Liesel’s life unfold in an environment of binaries, the author creates the structure of his text where Hans (the man) is superior a character to Rosa (the woman). He helps Liesel in her struggle for survival (the centre).
Breaking Binaries
According to Derrida, the centre is the most important element of any structure (Klages, 2006). In this chapter, Liesel’s struggles for survival develop through the opposing forces of Hans and Rosa. It keeps the binaries in place and the structure well intact. However, a closer look at the binaries reveal multiplicities of meaning in the text, which point to an unstable structure.
In a culture where the man was supposed to be in charge of the family and the woman was supposed to concentrate only on children, church and kitchen (BBC, n.d.), Rosa emerged as “the woman with the iron fist”. Not just literally, but figuratively too. Rosa earned for the family by ironing clothes of the rich and was also a strong-willed person. Apparently it seems that Hans is the one behind Liesel’s survival, saving her from her nightmares, soothing her past wounds, giving her music, however it is Rosa who actually helps the family sustain through her tireless hours in the kitchen and outside home “picking up and delivering washing and ironing from the wealthier parts of town”. Rosa’s “dutiful smile” to her clients showcases her prudence.
At another level, Rosa is also the one who exposes Liesel to the rough, harsh world and helps her face reality. Rosa shoves her up to the mayor’s house to get the laundry, makes her carry the sack as they move from house to house along the streets of Molching and forces her to clean the spit of Frau Holtzapfel from the front door every night. Rosa also exposes Liesel to a lot of swearing words through the day, which effectively prepares her to face a harsh world in Nazi Germany.
On the other hand, Hans the man, the protector, left Liesel every evening, giving her “anxiety”. He only came back in time to comfort Liesel in her nightmares, to give her company. While Zusak writes about “the brute strength of the man’s gentleness”, the author creates an oxymoron of strong and gentle. While Hans was gentle (an attribute culturally attributed to women), he was far from strong (an attribute for men). The actual man in the house was the woman with the iron fist, Rosa. These multiplicities of meaning in the chapter shows how disjoint the text is, how the characters interchange roles vis-à-vis the binaries of security/insecurity, hope/hopelessness and illiteracy/knowledge.
Conclusion
The centre of the structure becomes unstable when the binaries break down upon a detailed look. The woman (Rosa) becomes the man, the symbol of strength, security and hope as she prepares Liesel for a rough world and the man (Hans) becomes a symbol of goodness and virtue, of art and music, which are also appreciable contributions, but with questionable value in troubled times. The question may remain: what is the true essence of survival, of bravery? Is it a gentle journey through silent walks and soothing music? Or is it a formidable spirit nurtured through the mundane complexities of everyday life? There are perhaps no absolute answer and it rests with readers’ individual interpretations, thus pointing to a fundamental disunity in the text.
References
BBC, UK, n.d., Life for women and the family in Nazi Germany, viewed 1 April 2020 from https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zxb8msg/revision/1
Chamburidze, N., 2012, ‘Essence of Children’s Literature – Significant Aspect of Education’, International Journal of Russian Studies, 1 (2012/2), ISSN: 2158-7051.
Johnson, R. A., 2014, ‘Trends in Children’s Literature and the Social Implications’, University of Tennessee Honours Thesis Projects.
Klages, M., 2006, Literary Theory: A Guide for the Perplexed, Continuum, London and New York.
Lévi-Strauss, C., 1969, The Elementary Structures of Kinship, Beacon Press, MA. ISBN: 9780807046692.
Putri, A. and Sarwoto, P., 2016, ‘Saussurian Binary Opposition as the Narrative Structure of Williams’ Summer and Smoke’, Journal of Language and Literature, 16 (2016): 82–98.
Zusak, M., 2016, The Book Thief, Random House, UK. ISBN: 9781473541870.
