Genesis And Catastrophe Analysis

Genesis and catastrophe analysis

The very famous and popular writer Roald Dahl writes the short story Genesis and catastrophe in 1962. It begins with a woman, who has just given birth to a boy, her fourth child. Throughout the short story, we find out that the woman’s name is Klara. All of her other three children had died at a very young age, and she is therefore worried about her newborn’s health and survival. Moreover, because of that she could not believe the doctor when he said that she would have a healthy baby. He keeps reassuring her that the baby is fine, yet she still cannot depend on that, and she is very sure about the fact that also this baby will die. When asked what the baby’s name should be, she answered the doctor that its name will be Adolf. Her husband, whose name is Alois Hitler, comes to the hospital to pay her a visit. In addition, he is an alcoholic and is not pleased with the baby’s physical conditions. He thinks that Adolf looks very weak and little: ““This one is even smaller than Otto was!” The doctor took a couple of quick paces forward. “There is nothing wrong with that child,” he said. Slowly, the husband straightened up, turned away from the bed, and looked at the doctor. He seemed bewildered and stricken. “It’s no good lying, Doctor,” he said. “I know what it means. It’s going to be the same all over again.”” (At the bottom of page 5). The story is undoubtedly about the birth of Adolf Hitler, which automatically makes the reader think, because we instantly know that this baby will become a terrible man, who actually did not deserve to be born in this world.

The story is set in a town called Braunau am Inn in Austria. It is year 1889, the year Hitler was born. The environment in that period historically did encompass infant mortality, and it was not astounding for families to lose a young member. Infant mortality was generally reasoned diseases the pharmaceutical industry did not have any cure for at that time.

The woman, Klara, is in her home, and the time is set on the conversation between the doctor and the Hitler’s. This is also very common for short stories, for the reason that the happenings usually take place ‘here and now’; time-lapse in a short story would go against the genre, whose specialty lies in the shortness of time and the story itself.

As said earlier, the genre of this text is a short story because it can be read in one sitting. It contains only a few characters and is focused on a self-contained incident, which can be recognized in this story. As many other short stories, this story also has a limited third person narrator, given that the characters are referred to as ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘it’, etc. On top of that, the story is written through the doctor’s point of view, and it is in this text important to distinguish the main character from the point of view. Our main character is the mother, Klara, because the whole story centralizes around her feelings and thoughts about her newborn child. In fact, this story’s point of view gives the reader an objective description of our main character as a person, and we meet Klara and Alois through the doctor’s perspective.

The doctor appears to be a genuine and soothing person when he continually tries to calm Klara down, but also spare her from her husband’s inconsiderate declarations about their baby: ““That’s enough!” the doctor said sharply. The mother was weeping now. Great sobs were shaking her body. The doctor walked over to the husband and put a hand on his shoulder. “Be good to her,” he whispered. “Please. It is very important.” Then he squeezed the husband’s shoulder hard and began pushing him forward surreptitiously to the edge of the bed”. (In the middle of page 6). He seems to be of caring and tolerant character in the way that he acts towards the couple in proportion to the rumors he had heard about them. At any rate towards the father’s impolite handling of his wife’s terrified and vulnerable condition. He is an important person in this specific story, because he is our source to all information in the text, and for example, he is the one confronting the father about the baby. He is a round and functional character, but also a neutral and ordinary character.

The father, Alois Hitler seems to be a very strict and insensitive man. He is in the story said to be a drunkard: “The husband was a drunkard, the innkeeper’s wife had said, an arrogant, overbearing, bullying little drunkard” (At the top of page 2). He has the features of an unsympathetic person in the way that he casually drinks beer at their third child’s funeral: “‘I have news for you, Klara, I have good news.’ Can you imagine that, Doctor? We have just buried our third child and he stands there with a glass of beer in his hand and tells me that he has good news” (In the middle of page 3). He does not appear as a loving and respecting husband, and the reader gains the feeling that he is dominating over- as well as disparaging his wife. Along with that, he straightforwardly has a bad reputation according to the doctor’s thoughts; he is someone people do not talk about nicely. In some parts of the story, you can see an image of Adolf Hitler as a person in some certain things that he does. Alois is considered as a flat and technical character.

The mother is in the text described as a very sad and fragile woman with a pale exhausted face; “…but the young woman was gentle and religious. And she was very sad. She never smiled. In the few weeks that she had been here, the innkeeper’s wife had never once seen her smile” (At the top of page 2). She cries numerous times in the text and keeps asking the Doctor the same question: “Is he weak? Is he small? Is he all right?”. She seems to be one of those persons, who life has totally wrecked and torn down. She has gone through innumerable harsh times, for example the death of her three children and living with an alcoholic husband. She is very emotional and you get the feeling that she is one the edge of a major breakdown if her fourth child also dies.

The writer uses a unique kind of language. Before we even know that the story is about the birth of one of the world’s most infamous people, Roald Dahl slips in many hints in the story to refer to it. For example, Hitler’s father and the way he refers to specimens in the text; it reflects back on Hitler, as we know him, just thinking about his so-called powerful “Aryan race”. Dahl bravely uses irony in this story, where the mother says: “Oh God, be merciful unto him”. We know today that if God should ever be unmerciful to someone, that would be Hitler. This leads us to the themes of the story, which are life and death. Every mother is willing to die for her child’s well-being, but in this particular story, the reader is undoubtedly sympathetic with the mother, but we know that her child does not deserve to live. That is something very special about this story. It pulls the reader to the point that if they were to choose if Adolf should live or die, they would not give him life. We get to destroy the idea of motherly love, because we do not want the mother’s child to live. On the other hand, maybe God chose exactly Hitler to live, and not his other siblings. Maybe his mother’s prayers saved him, we will never knowGenesis and catastrophe analysis

The very famous and popular writer Roald Dahl writes the short story Genesis and catastrophe in 1962. It begins with a woman, who has just given birth to a boy, her fourth child. Throughout the short story, we find out that the woman’s name is Klara. All of her other three children had died at a very young age, and she is therefore worried about her newborn’s health and survival. Moreover, because of that she could not believe the doctor when he said that she would have a healthy baby. He keeps reassuring her that the baby is fine, yet she still cannot depend on that, and she is very sure about the fact that also this baby will die. When asked what the baby’s name should be, she answered the doctor that its name will be Adolf. Her husband, whose name is Alois Hitler, comes to the hospital to pay her a visit. In addition, he is an alcoholic and is not pleased with the baby’s physical conditions. He thinks that Adolf looks very weak and little: ““This one is even smaller than Otto was!” The doctor took a couple of quick paces forward. “There is nothing wrong with that child,” he said. Slowly, the husband straightened up, turned away from the bed, and looked at the doctor. He seemed bewildered and stricken. “It’s no good lying, Doctor,” he said. “I know what it means. It’s going to be the same all over again.”” (At the bottom of page 5). The story is undoubtedly about the birth of Adolf Hitler, which automatically makes the reader think, because we instantly know that this baby will become a terrible man, who actually did not deserve to be born in this world.

The story is set in a town called Braunau am Inn in Austria. It is year 1889, the year Hitler was born. The environment in that period historically did encompass infant mortality, and it was not astounding for families to lose a young member. Infant mortality was generally reasoned diseases the pharmaceutical industry did not have any cure for at that time.

The woman, Klara, is in her home, and the time is set on the conversation between the doctor and the Hitler’s. This is also very common for short stories, for the reason that the happenings usually take place ‘here and now’; time-lapse in a short story would go against the genre, whose specialty lies in the shortness of time and the story itself.

As said earlier, the genre of this text is a short story because it can be read in one sitting. It contains only a few characters and is focused on a self-contained incident, which can be recognized in this story. As many other short stories, this story also has a limited third person narrator, given that the characters are referred to as ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘it’, etc. On top of that, the story is written through the doctor’s point of view, and it is in this text important to distinguish the main character from the point of view. Our main character is the mother, Klara, because the whole story centralizes around her feelings and thoughts about her newborn child. In fact, this story’s point of view gives the reader an objective description of our main character as a person, and we meet Klara and Alois through the doctor’s perspective.

The doctor appears to be a genuine and soothing person when he continually tries to calm Klara down, but also spare her from her husband’s inconsiderate declarations about their baby: ““That’s enough!” the doctor said sharply. The mother was weeping now. Great sobs were shaking her body. The doctor walked over to the husband and put a hand on his shoulder. “Be good to her,” he whispered. “Please. It is very important.” Then he squeezed the husband’s shoulder hard and began pushing him forward surreptitiously to the edge of the bed”. (In the middle of page 6). He seems to be of caring and tolerant character in the way that he acts towards the couple in proportion to the rumors he had heard about them. At any rate towards the father’s impolite handling of his wife’s terrified and vulnerable condition. He is an important person in this specific story, because he is our source to all information in the text, and for example, he is the one confronting the father about the baby. He is a round and functional character, but also a neutral and ordinary character.

The father, Alois Hitler seems to be a very strict and insensitive man. He is in the story said to be a drunkard: “The husband was a drunkard, the innkeeper’s wife had said, an arrogant, overbearing, bullying little drunkard” (At the top of page 2). He has the features of an unsympathetic person in the way that he casually drinks beer at their third child’s funeral: “‘I have news for you, Klara, I have good news.’ Can you imagine that, Doctor? We have just buried our third child and he stands there with a glass of beer in his hand and tells me that he has good news” (In the middle of page 3). He does not appear as a loving and respecting husband, and the reader gains the feeling that he is dominating over- as well as disparaging his wife. Along with that, he straightforwardly has a bad reputation according to the doctor’s thoughts; he is someone people do not talk about nicely. In some parts of the story, you can see an image of Adolf Hitler as a person in some certain things that he does. Alois is considered as a flat and technical character.

The mother is in the text described as a very sad and fragile woman with a pale exhausted face; “…but the young woman was gentle and religious. And she was very sad. She never smiled. In the few weeks that she had been here, the innkeeper’s wife had never once seen her smile” (At the top of page 2). She cries numerous times in the text and keeps asking the Doctor the same question: “Is he weak? Is he small? Is he all right?”. She seems to be one of those persons, who life has totally wrecked and torn down. She has gone through innumerable harsh times, for example the death of her three children and living with an alcoholic husband. She is very emotional and you get the feeling that she is one the edge of a major breakdown if her fourth child also dies.

The writer uses a unique kind of language. Before we even know that the story is about the birth of one of the world’s most infamous people, Roald Dahl slips in many hints in the story to refer to it. For example, Hitler’s father and the way he refers to specimens in the text; it reflects back on Hitler, as we know him, just thinking about his so-called powerful “Aryan race”. Dahl bravely uses irony in this story, where the mother says: “Oh God, be merciful unto him”. We know today that if God should ever be unmerciful to someone, that would be Hitler. This leads us to the themes of the story, which are life and death. Every mother is willing to die for her child’s well-being, but in this particular story, the reader is undoubtedly sympathetic with the mother, but we know that her child does not deserve to live. That is something very special about this story. It pulls the reader to the point that if they were to choose if Adolf should live or die, they would not give him life. We get to destroy the idea of motherly love, because we do not want the mother’s child to live. On the other hand, maybe God chose exactly Hitler to live, and not his other siblings. Maybe his mother’s prayers saved him, we will never know