Stylistic and artistic specificity of Bernhard Schlink’s novel “The Reader”

This article is dedicated to examining the stylistic and artistic characteristics of the renowned German writer Bernhard Schlink. Schlink is one of the most prominent contemporary European authors who gravitate towards traditional realistic literature. This influences the specificity of the artist’s creative style. Schlink’s novel «The Reader» has already been included in German school literature anthologies. The article demonstrates that the protagonist of “The Reader” Michael Berg, represents the so-called “second generation” – the generation of children whose parents were contemporaries of the Third Reich, individuals who stained themselves either by collaborating with the Nazi regime or by reconciling with the existing order. After the war, trials of Nazis took place, and horrific facts were revealed. This newly uncovered reality was so immoral that the mere belonging to the generation that legitimately brought Nazism to power engendered an all-consuming sense of guilt. This guilt extended to both those who were witnesses and accomplices, and their descendants. The entire work emphasizes that a sense of guilt haunts the protagonist in various life situations; he feels guilty not only towards Hanna but also towards his father and his wife, with whom he couldn’t find common ground. It is determined that the central object of artistic interpretation in «The Reader» is the feeling of collective guilt, which is revealed through various stylistic means. It is proven that the story of Michael Berg and the guard Hanna accentuates the feelings of the “second generation”. The analysis shows that at the center of the novel is the narrator-protagonist Michael Berg; his reflections and the entire story are aimed at comprehending the problem of German responsibility for the existence of concentration camps, and at striving to understand both his own attitude towards his former lover Hanna Schmitz and the motives for her behavior as a guard. Bernhard Schlink, using various stylistic and artistic devices, depicts several periods of the protagonist’s life, who recounts events from his youth, then his mature period of life after Hanna’s death. It is emphasized that in “The Reader”, all events are presented through Michael’s perspective; Hanna’s thoughts are only provided in their dialogues. It is proven that the heroine’s guardedness, corresponding to the fate of the parents’ generation, signifies the misunderstanding between older and younger generations, the former’s closed-off nature, and the latter’s desire to understand the motives of their actions.