Reflection 138-147

This excerpt of the book “The Assault” is again a meeting between Anton and Takes at his house. This piece is mainly driven by the motif of Truus, to which different symbols and other motifs are included. Beyond that the themes avoidance, understanding and fate cover everything up. We go back into the past, and things become clearer.

“Anton has never felt so involved with another man…”(138) this shows the relationship of Anton towards Takes that they had gotten fairly close to each other over the course of the book. Both do share one special thing in common, Truus. This makes Takes the foil character of this book. Both are in love with Truus, while Anton has the idea of Truus in his head, Takes has actually met her. In these pages we learn more about their relationship.

An important symbol that appears here is the cigarette. Whenever Truus is the main topic of conversation, Takes has “a cigarette hanging from his lips” (138).  As later in the extract this is the cause for a fire, which could mean that the cigarette symbolizes on one hand the past but on the other hand the loss of something and in this case it would be Truus, either for Anton or Takes. The fire just indicates the final ending, since the mystery of who Truus is has been solved.

“Not until it ended, and with it every single memory… a blue pillar of smoke…from the ashtray…”(146) Through out the text Anton doesn’t quite have his memory gathered, but slowly recreates the situation of that one night in the cell. The memory of a photograph brings back first connections with Truus’ conversation, followed by stories of Takes’ with Truus, Anton remembers more and more. Takes remembers most details of any situatons with Truus, while the only thing on Anton’s mind is her face. The fire at the end symbolizes, he has reached the end of all memories left of Truus and can now be whipped out.

Saskia. Anton’s wife is one step towards a greater understanding of Truus. It shows how Anton has been searching all his life to recreate Truus, the way he imagines her. The use of light emphasizes understanding “finally she has risen out of the darkness”(139), and shows the connections between Truus and Saksia. The expression in her face, even though he never saw Truus, was exactly displayed in Saksia’s.

“Her face was indelibly printed in his memory” (140), the imagination of Truus’ face of Antons standpoint is juxtaposed to the ending seen, where he actually let’s all of what’s left of Truus burn.

Another symbol, which is repeated several times through out the pages, is the gun of Truus. This represents the past. With this object everything has started. “The gun in the table were a weight that dragged Anton along with it into the depth of the past”(144), the quote expresses very well that the gun signifies the past. Later the gun gets burned as well along with the past and the memories.

Reflection pg 106-118

This excerpt of the book “The Assault” focuses on various themes, which ties into the motifs and symbols.  Yet one theme is the main block around which everything else is build up on: FATE, to this the motif of light and stones and the themes AVOIDANCE and UNDERSTANDING are involve as well.

Anton’s live is made up of fate. Everything happens to be a coincidence, which leads him back to his dark past. This apparently was also all a coincidence, “one can always help fate along a bit”(114), and this shows that the assault was never meant to end in a way that his family got murdered. There happened more to the assault, which was beyond the control of the family Steenwijk.

In these 13 pages, Anton meets the guy who has shot Ploeg at the funeral of a resistance member. Both have a different understanding of the whole scenario, where as Anton has a rather limited knowledge of the particular night. “Care, care... It can’t be changed now, even if I understood it” (117), this shows how Anton has been avoiding his past and never really tried to understand. Through fate he got back to his and is now in a conversation with the murderer of Ploeg (also called Gijs), which leads to a conclusion that there is more to the assault than just the assault.

The mood of the conversation or flow is a couple of times reflected through light. Right at the beginning, when Anton by accident follows a conversation, he jumps right back  “deep inside the tunnel of the past” (108). The tunnel symbolizing darkness, the darkness he is trying to avoid and barely knows about.  But then again this is the light of the darkness- for Anton it seems like a fairy tale (110) meeting the man with whom it all began, he wants to know what happened, because now he has the chance to find out more. Still he tries to avoid.

Another scene where light is strongly emphasized is when Gijs is justifying himself, but doesn’t quite to whom. “…Who exists? The dead. The friends who have died.”(112) Here a small cloud covers the sun-darkness. “The flowers of the new grave look bleached”(112), the grave symbolizing stones, which therefore emblematizes memory, the memory of the murdered family with all its regret and sadness. Who’s death they are trying to understand years later, emphasized by the reoccurrence of light from one moment to another.

All in all it’s a sunny day, where Anton and Gijs are facing the mystery that there’s more to the assault. Even though Anton “never wondered about it” (117) and always tried to avoid, Gijs is desperate to find out.

“…there was more to it. Something happened there.” (118) 

PAGE 26/27

Annotation

Outline

• Intro
• Where: at Steenwijk's house
• Characters: Anton, Mother, Father, Germans
• Motif: light 
• structure
• Body 1: 
• Context : 
• Before: normal life; children do homework, mother housewife, father worker and teacher of Peter
• After: Anton gets taken away 
• Now: right after the assault, when the Germans enter the house of the Steenwijk's
• Body 2: 
• Motif: light
• germans help and advantage : flashlights
• give the Germans power 
• therefore in contrast to situation before 
• Body 3: 
• Contrast 
• deadly silence - busyness 
• Germans creating busyness: make feel special 
• before everything calm- rather silent 
• Body 4: 
• Motif : light 
• darkness : bad things happen 
• connection: soldier and flashlights
Body 5: 
• Character Father:
• head of family 
• tries to keep control 
• in juxtaposition with the following
• Body 6: 
• the Germans 
• spreading horror 
• creating worries
• tearing apart 
• Body 7: 
• Anton: 
• scared
• thoughtful 
• doubting 
• caring 
• thoughts running through his head
• Body 8: 
• Foreshadowing 
• " Everything went at a terrible clip. "
• comparison, change in paste 

• Body 9: 
• Overall structure 
• short dialogue 
• lots of description - detailed discription of what is happening ( listing) 
• Body 10: 
• syntax + diction 
• Conclusion: 
• summery 

Information & sourcing

3 Kinds of Information

• Common knowledge 
• specific information - FOOTNOTE OR SOURCE IN TEXT
• detail
• examples
• new evidence
• Direct quote? or paraphrase? is it succinct? ( short)
• if yes, quote ( no more than 2 lines) 
• if no, paraphrase 

SOURCE IT!!!


Annotated Bibliography

- what's it about
- what will be used ( write a paragraph about source)

Précis

Advertisement- Précis

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