Thursday, July 18, 2013

Whats happening during the chapters 5-7 in the devils arithmetic?

These three chapters are the last three before the setting
and mood of the novel take a traumatic turn for the worse. These chapters are about
Hannah's immersion into her new world -- Poland in 1942. Hannah is completely confused
and feels out of place, but those around her treat her as someone they have known for a
long time and Hannah quickly realizes that nothing she says of her "past" in New
Rochelle as Hannah makes any sense to them. She is continually "culture shocked."
Breakfast is a plain affair of bread and milk, and the milk is not processed like that
of home. The clothes she must wear to her uncle's upcoming wedding are just awful and
ugly in her opinion (from the future). She is dismayed by everything about life, but
realizes too that she is being loved and cared for by very genuine people, Gitl and
Shmuel. Chapter 5 focuses on her home life with Gitl and her realization that her modern
memories and comments sound like nonsense here. Chapter 6 focuses on the preparations
for the wedding. Chapter 7 is about the actual travel to the wedding. Many of the
village walk together with the bride and groom in wagons to the town and the synague
where the wedding will take place. Hannah is able to make friends easily and enjoys
being the center of attention as a story-teller with lot of interesting tales to tell.
She uses books and movies she has read or seen as her sources. Unfortunately, by the end
of chapte eight, the wedding party is being confronted by the Nazi soldiers who are
rounding up all of the Jews in the village so that they can be transported, by train, to
a concentration camp. The innocence and excitement of this strange time-travel journey
comes to an abrupt halt as the horror of the situation sets in.

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