The Reader

Interrogate the problematic aspects of Michael’s affair with Hanna. How does the story abide by and deviate from beliefs about grooming and sexual predation? How does Michael view their relationship, and how does Schlink use literary elements to support or subvert that viewpoint?

There are many symbols in the story, including the trial, reading, and the tin the daughter keeps. Choose one symbol and examine how it relates to the story’s themes. How does it evolve in the text and deepen your understanding?

Analyze Michael’s beliefs about love and guilt. He loves Hanna and feels guilty because he thinks his love for her implicates him in her crimes. If someone loves a person who did something reprehensible, does that mean they tolerate the terrible act?

This book uses statutory rape and uneven power dynamics to ask broader questions about guilt, harm, and memory. How do issues like pedophilia, statutory rape, or large age gaps affect the themes in other books like Nabokov’s Lolita or films like Harold and Maude? Choose another work and compare the central relationship with Hanna and Michael’s. What similarities do they share, and how do they differ? How does the other author use this relationship to illuminate different themes?

There are numerous books about how to assign guilt for the Holocaust and Nazi atrocities. Select a book, like Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem, and discuss how the text confirms or contests Michael’s perspective on guilt, justice, and punishment.

Discuss your reaction to Hanna’s character. What makes her likable, unlikeable, relatable, or discomfiting? Is it possible to understand her position and see her as a human without excusing her conduct?

From Franz Kafka to Leo Tolstoy, Michael reads many books out loud to Hanna. Choose a work by an author in the story and connect that text to The Reader.

Watch the 2008 film adaptation of the book and describe similarities and differences. What does the movie leave out? How does it show Michael’s keen imagery and manipulation of time?