“‘Why so much blood?’ he asks. She sets four fingers across her lips. Debating whether to tell him or pretend she does not know. Accusation or resignation or complicity. ‘Where is he?’ ‘Leizpig. For surgery.’” (256). A traumatized Werner Pfennig, after hearing his friend Frederick was brutally attacked by several students, wanders to the infirmary during lunch hours. Frederick has suffered a broken jaw, cracked skull, and severe brain trauma. Despite Frederick being his first friend at the school, Werner has ignored the severe bullying to focus on Dr. Hauptmann’s project, a radio transceiver for tracking down anti-Nazi broadcasts. While many would see this as the ultimate betrayal of a friendship, Werner’s only goal is to protect his sister
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However, this does not mean that Werner is not in pain from watching Frederick, his only friend, being brutalized. After watching Frederick being beaten with a fire hose for three days in a row, “Werner tries to lose himself in his work in Hauptmann’s lab … but even in those late hours, it as if the sky has dimmed and the school has become a darker, more diabolical place.” (238). Werner’s maturity is displayed here - he must pick between protecting his only friend or protecting his only sibling, choosing his sibling while painfully enduring the sights of his friend’s increasingly brutal injuries. Werner chose Jutta because her future is greater than Werner’s present. He thinks of her everyday, all of his actions are for Jutta’s good, or at least what he thinks are for her good. “He cannot help but hear Jutta as he stood beside the canal : Is it right to do something because everyone else is doing it? Something in Werner’s soul shuts his scaly eyes and the professor fires the pistol into the sky.” (245). Werner himself is doubting whether he is becoming too unfeeling to reach his goal, but something in him says he must continue and persist. Frederick becomes an unfortunate liability as a result, and Werner is forced to neglect him to reach his
However, this does not mean that Werner is not in pain from watching Frederick, his only friend, being brutalized. After watching Frederick being beaten with a fire hose for three days in a row, “Werner tries to lose himself in his work in Hauptmann’s lab … but even in those late hours, it as if the sky has dimmed and the school has become a darker, more diabolical place.” (238). Werner’s maturity is displayed here - he must pick between protecting his only friend or protecting his only sibling, choosing his sibling while painfully enduring the sights of his friend’s increasingly brutal injuries. Werner chose Jutta because her future is greater than Werner’s present. He thinks of her everyday, all of his actions are for Jutta’s good, or at least what he thinks are for her good. “He cannot help but hear Jutta as he stood beside the canal : Is it right to do something because everyone else is doing it? Something in Werner’s soul shuts his scaly eyes and the professor fires the pistol into the sky.” (245). Werner himself is doubting whether he is becoming too unfeeling to reach his goal, but something in him says he must continue and persist. Frederick becomes an unfortunate liability as a result, and Werner is forced to neglect him to reach his