He is introverted, emotionally distant, and fairly self-centered. Michael is a sympathetic character even though he is not, in many ways, a particularly likable character.
The first-person point of view, coupled with the fictionally autobiographical construction, gives the text a gritty and believable texture. This metafictional element constructs an artificial credibility within the text, which is supplemented by the authoritative writing. Michael Berg, the novel's primary character and protagonist, is also the narrator and in the final chapter claims to be the author of the supposed autobiographical text. Style Point of View Author – Bernhard Schlink The novel is written in the first-person limited point of view. Thus while he is able to inhabit both worlds, Hanna registers the material difference in their backgrounds and feels culturally displaced. Whilst Michael is more or less oblivious to class tensions, Hanna is deeply uncomfortable when he cooks for her in his parents' home. Unlike the leisured middle classes, she does not have the luxury to spend time contemplating life as both Michael and his philosopher father are able to. She needs to earn a sufficient living to stay alive, all the while concealing her inability to read. We are never given any evidence to suggest that she is, before the trial, haunted by recollections of her past and at least a partial explanation for this must be that Hanna is a character who is forced to live in the present.
THE READER BY BERNHARD SCHLINK SUMMARY SERIES
As a member of the working class, the only time that Hanna is given a chance to speak is at her trial, and even then she is not able to tell her story as she sees it, but must instead answer a series of questions aimed at incriminating her. Themes There also a number of important class tensions in play in The Reader, of which Hanna's illiteracy is only one symptom. Michael's explanation is evasive, and its credibility is open to debate, since he too is attempting to rationalize his own failure to speak out in support of his former lover. Instead, he argues that Hanna is struggling for some kind of private truth and justice whose precise meaning must elude all others. Yet later, Michael concludes that Hanna was neither stupid, nor evil, nor vain. His recollection that Hanna was startled when he suggested "horse" as a suitable nickname for her leads him to conclude that she was alarmed because of comparisons made between herself and a particularly sadistic guard known as "mare".
Since he is attempting to reconcile matters for himself, Michael Berg cannot be relied upon for a definitive answer.
THE READER BY BERNHARD SCHLINK SUMMARY TRIAL
On the other, the not altogether reliable evidence presented at the trial suggests that she took pleasure in carrying out her orders with efficiency and even cruelty. Themes On the one hand it appears that Hanna had no alternatives in a society that stigmatizes illiteracy and values learning.
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