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first time; ―The woman on the bench was Hanna? Gray hair, a face with deep furrows on brow and cheeks and around the mouth, and a heavy body‖ p. 195.
Getting closer to Hanna at his first visit, Michael illustrates her smell as well,
I sat ne xt to Hanna and smelled an old woman. I don‘t know what makes
up this smell, which I recognize from grandmothers and elderly aunts, and which hangs in the rooms and halls of old-age homes like a curse. Hanna
was too young for it p. 197.
Hanna and Michael do not see each other for more than twenty years, she must look much older then, but for Michael she looks older than she should be.
Her high forehead and high cheekbones are now covered with deep furrows. Her strong feminine seductive body now becomes heavy and smells like
grandmothers. As time passes, the beauty and attractiveness of her vanish. The life in the prison must make her looks older than she should be.
2. Hanna Schmitz’s Social Traits
In order to understand Hanna‘s social life condition fully, this section discusses
Hanna‘s illiteracy as her inadequate condition to live the social life. To live in a society, both oral and written communication is very critical to have. If
one fails to work, then there will be a deformity in socialization ability. Illiteracy may become one difficulty in catching up with what is happening in the society
for most of the social activities require literary abilities. Illiteracy seems to be a critical issue in this novel which affects the
characters possessed by Hanna. Here Hanna‘s illiteracy can be understood based
on Murphy‘s theory of characterization; character of Hanna ―as seen by‖ Michael,
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the ―speech conversation‖ of others, and Hanna‘s ―reaction‖ to specific situations and events p. 162-168. It can be first se
en from Michael‘s exposition which shows that Hanna is illiterate. Their first meeting is without introducing self each
other, after the sixth or seventh day coming to Hanna‘s apartment, Michael asks Hanna‘s first name, he knows her last name already from the mail box in her
apartment. She asks him back what is his. Michael thinks that Hanna can actually see his name easily as seen in the quotation below,
At that time it was the in thing not to carry your schoolbook in a bag but under your arm, and when I put them on her kitchen table, my name was
on the front. But she hadn‘t paid any attention to them p. 34. It is actually easy for anyone to know Michael‘s name from his
schoolbooks, but Hanna cannot recognize it. The first proof of Hanna‘s illiteracy above does not make Michael realize her illiteracy until Hanna asks Michael to
read aloud for her. Hanna finds out that Michael studies literature, she asks him to read for her before they make out. The reading aloud is then becomes a ritual in
their affair It all happened because of reading aloud. The day after our conversation,
Hanna wanted to know what I was learning in school. … ―So read it to me‖
―Read it yourself, Ill bring it for you.‖ ―You have such a nice voice, kid, Id rather listen to you than read it
myself.‖ ―Oh, come on.‖
But next day when I arrived and wanted to kiss her, she pulled back. ―First you have to read.‖ p. 41-42.
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By having Michael read aloud for her, Hanna would feel that she is able to ―read‖ books. She is very zealous in listening to every story read by Michael; she
pays attention a lot to him as Michael says that she is an attentive listener p. 43. In the end of the story, the illiteracy possessed by Hanna is told explicitly
by Michael after Hanna‘s death when he delivers Hanna‘s legacy to the survived daughter, ―I sent her tapes. Frau Schmitz was illiterate almost all her life; she only
learned to read and write in prison.‖ p. 213. Illiteracy may lead Hanna into other ―misbehavior‖. When the trial is going
on, Hanna shows that she does not really get to the point, of the rules in the court as Michael directly says, ―She had no sense of context, of the rules, of the game,
of the formulas by which her statements and those of the others were toted up into guilt and innoc
ence, conviction and acquittal.‖ p. 110. Another proof shows that Hanna does not understand about the trial
custom she is in. When the judge is asking whether Hanna know that she was sending the prisoners to their death for the reason to make new rooms for the new
ones, Hanna asks him back; what would he have done. This event makes the court silent for a moment. In German trials, it is not proper to ask the judge back in the
middle of the trial, even it is not proper for defendants to propose a question to the judge p. 111.
To compensate for her defective grasp of the situation, her lawyer would have had to have more experience and self-confidence, or simply to have
been better p. 110.
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Further, the illiteracy and her substandard of the condition cause difficulties not only to Hanna, but to her lawyer also as seen in the earlier
quotation. This causes and necessitates Hannas lawyer to have more attempt to defend her.
3. Hanna Schmitz’s Personality Traits
