Thursday, April 30, 2009

Prejudice

I found this scene puzzling — the one where the young people are in the bar and the bartender won't serve the Jew. Any theories on why McDermott included this?
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4 comments:

Erin said...

I forgot all about that scene. It is rather odd, because there's not another scene so overtly about prejudice. I'll have to think about it some more.

3:20 PM, April 30, 2009
kc said...

Maybe it's just to show how young and unjaded they are — they don't understand what's happening, why the guy's not being served. It never occurs to them — even though they fought in World War II, right? — that the guy is being treated that way because he's Jewish. And also to show that they're carefree and selfish, the way young people in love tend to be. They witness this kind of horrific thing and don't understand it or even think much about it afterward (except for Mary, who briefly condemns it in the car). It's outside of their world.

2:29 PM, May 14, 2009
kc said...

(I know we're kind of done talking about this book, but something just reminded me of this scene)

2:31 PM, May 14, 2009
Erin said...

Yeah, that's a good thought. And it makes me think, too, that a lot of times now we think about World War II as being about saving the Jews, but that wasn't the original intention. The young GIs were as clueless as anybody about antisemitism.

5:13 PM, May 14, 2009

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