The Devil's Arithmetic Themes
The main themes in The Devil’s Arithmetic are memory, storytelling, and heroism.
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Memory: As a twelve-year-old girl living in modern-day New York City, Hannah doesn’t understand her family’s need to remember the past. Only by experiencing the Holocaust firsthand does Hannah come to understand the importance of cultural memory.
- Storytelling: Hannah discovers the power of stories after she is transported to the past, and she draws on that power in the concentration camp.
- Heroism: Yolen portrays the heroism of those who survived the Holocaust, those who bear witness, and those who remember.
Themes: All Themes
Themes: Memory
The central theme of The Devil’s Arithmetic is the importance and power of memory. At the opening of the novel, Hannah is bored and frustrated by her relatives’ constant need to remember the past; she cannot understand why her grandparents’ memories are so important to them. Then Hannah is transported to a Jewish village during World War II, where she, along with other Jews, is forced into a concentration camp. Ironically, as soon as Hannah...
(Read more)Themes: Storytelling
Related to the theme of memory is the power of storytelling in the novel. In the opening, Hannah belittles and refuses to listen to her grandparents’ stories. However, soon after arriving in the past, even before she is taken to the concentration camps, Hannah begins to recognize the power of stories. The day after she arrives in the Jewish village, Hannah meets some of the children and tells them the plots of modern books and movies, in the form...
(Read more)Themes: Heroism
Another crucial idea in the novel is the definition of true heroism. When Hannah is distraught over the death of a young child she has grown close to, she says the Jews in the camp are “monsters” to let these horrors continue without actively fighting. Rivka, on the other hand, believes that it is much more difficult to continue to live, to suffer and watch others suffer than to “go out shooting”; she concludes that everyone who finds the will to...
(Read more)Themes: Survival
The theme of survival in The Devil's Arithmeticis central to the narrative, exploring the harsh realities faced by those in Nazi concentration camps. Survival is depicted as a complex interplay of physical endurance, mental resilience, and the need for a philosophical understanding of life and death. The characters must navigate a world governed by "the devil's arithmetic," a grim calculation determining who lives and dies, highlighting the...
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