What problem is Hannah facing in The Devil's Arithmetic?
Without a specific location in the story, this question is wide open because Hannah faces far more than a single problem over the course of the novel. An initial problem in Hannah's mind is her family. She is bored by the stories of their past, and Hannah is really not looking forward to the traditional Passover Seder at her grandparent's home. When Hannah goes to symbolically open the door for the prophet Elijah, she is transported back to Poland in 1942. That brings up an entire host of problems. Hannah might not have enjoyed her family's stories of the war and the concentration camps, but she certainly learned from them. She is absolutely aware of the dangers of her time period, location, and ancestry. This knowledge is made more difficult because nobody believes her. Hannah's consciousness, not her body, has been transported back in time, and Hannah exists in the...
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body of Chaya Abramowicz. Hannah claims that she is Hannah from America, but all of the people that know Chaya dismiss those claims because they believe it is left over hysteria from her recent cholera infection.
Hannah faces a couple of challenges. The most evident one is that she must reconcile the fact that she is inextricably linked to a past that she used to deride. At the outset of the story, she seems, at best, disinterested and, at worst, resentful of the her heritage. After allowing the prophet to enter and stepping through the threshold, she now finds herself immersed in that which she abdicated. She must reconcile her previous condition to the one in which she is. After walking back into 1942 Poland, Hannah, now as Chaya, must face a series of obstacles simply because of her heritage, a stunning reminder to her (and us) that no matter how much time has passed, one can never dismiss the past. Her primary challenge is situated in concentration camp life and the ultimate sacrifice she must make for another.
What is Hannah's main goal in The Devil's Arithmetic?
Hannah's immediate goal is survival. Once she realizes how dangerous her situation is, she needs to do whatever she can to avoid the terrible fate of so many Jews during the Holocaust. In turn, this means that the longer she can stay alive, the more she'll understand the predicament of her ancestors. This is her long-term goal.
Hannah had heard all the stories from her folks about the war and what it was like for the Jewish people, but she never truly understood their significance. As the story begins, she doesn't quite fathom why it is that her family insists on remembering the past. But once she steps—quite literally—into the past and takes on the identity of Chaya, she finally comprehends just why it is that historical memory takes on such great significance for her family and for the Jewish people as a whole.