Reflection on "The Man's" Journal

“The man” as David calls him, is one of those small characters that show up in the book once or twice but have a really important part. Without him, this story would not fall in place because he was the one who saved David’s mother, Edith, from being killed in the concentration camp. She would not have escaped; therefore David wouldn’t have a reason to travel to Denmark as he did. “The man” had also told David the directions to get to Denmark and where the compass and bottle of water were hidden. He could have easily used them for himself to escape. “The man” is not selfish or greedy, but lets David as a young boy pass rather than himself.

            I chose this character because as I said before, without him the story breaks apart and does not make sense. Also it was difficult writing about him because I did not have enough information about him in the book, and he was very mysterious and suspicious to me from the beggining. The time I chose was before “The man” had shown David how to get out of the concentration camp. It also includes a bit about his life before 11 years, when he saved Edith, David’s mother. The time I chose helps explain a lot of questions that readers wonder about. For example; why did “The man” help David escape from the camp? He helped David because he was in love with his mother before, who resembled him so much in many ways to “The man”. He could not stand seeing David being tortured like that.

            I think it is time people hear the story of a character that was mentioned very little, but held the whole story up.