Symbolism In Titina Fink

We also see another, slightly different instance of this writing technic when Fink begins to describe how Ann feels when Mike is telling her about his home and life back in America. She describes Ann’s reaction as “it all sounded like a fairy tale from a storybook for well brought-up children” but this feeling that Fink’s character Ann is feeling does not end there. Fink continues to breathe life into this feeling by carrying it over into the description of the scenery around the characters for “the water in the Rhine glittered like fish scales, the weeds flowered in the ruins, airplanes circled overhead and they too were silvery and long, like fish” (pg 96). This description of the scenery around them almost makes the reader feel like they too are in a …show more content…
Another interesting thing the reader notices about Finks writing is that when going back to Night of Surrender a particular line stands prominently out to the reader “I am mean and nasty”. The reader when their eyes run over this phrase feels as if they have seen something similar to it before. They begin flipping backwards through the book one page, three pages, and boom there it is in Fink’s short story called Titina, “you scum, he said to himself. You filthy scum” (pg. 91). In both of these stories the main characters refer to themselves in such a demeaning way that it makes the reader wonder why? For these characters are committing two totally different actions one is turning an old teacher and family friend into the Germans to be killed, the other telling lies to a man she has become particularly found of. But what is the similarity between the two? Why did Fink choose such similar self-reflections between these two stories and these two characters. Is it because they are both doing this action that they themselves classify as “mean” or “scummy” in order to protect themselves, to guard themselves but in term are harming another and not just any other person but someone they truly care about harmed because of