Illiteracy

There were some people in Miami in the airport who were entrusted with maintaining the brake systems on air planes. They could not read a notice that was sent around, saying that there was a new kind of brake fluid being used and they continued to follow the usual procedures. One of the planes that they mis-serviced in this way lost its pressurization at about 30,000 feet and dropped. I use this opening anecdote as a diminished analogy of the harm that ignorance through illiteracy can cause the innocent.

One of the most surprising best-sellers in recent years is Berlin writer Bernhard Schlink's The Reader, a book which questions conscience and ethics and has been called a philosophical parable. The Reader begins as a coming-of-age story. Michael is 15 years old and the son of a professor of philosophy who by chance meets Hanna, a 36-year-old tram conductor. They have an affair that ends when Hanna leaves town. Michael sees her again seven years later. He is a law student; Hanna is on trial. He learns that she was a guard at Auschw

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o write the reports. During World War II, Hanna participated in the heinous crimes against the Jews in the concentration camps. However, she is portrayed as an innocent character in the story. When she is with Michael, Hanna seems held-back as if she is hiding something, rather than the aggressive one might think she is. An example of Hanna wanting to hold back is when Michael asked Hanna about her past. Michael expresses his thoughts: Things I wanted to know more about had vanished completely from her mind, and she didn't understand why I was interested in what happened to her parents, whether she had had brothers and sisters, how she had lived in Berlin and what she'd done in the army (Schlink 39). Hanna simply responded by saying, "The things you ask, kid!" (39). Hanna once became outrageous and hit Michael because she thought that he left her alone on the bike trip. Hanna later becomes aggressive when Michael came on to the streetcar to visit her. She ignored him, and then later blamed the whole incident on Michael by saying, "How should I know why you're going to Schwetzingen? How should I know why you choose not to know me? It's your business, not mine. Would you leave now?" (47). Besides those occurrences, Hanna was
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Approximate Word count = 1674
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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