Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Reckoning, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Guilt and Legacy
Morality, Survival, and Perspective
Sexuality and Shame
Body Image and Publicity
Indifference vs. Feeling
Summary
Analysis
In 1997, Magda buys a camcorder with the intention to film her father in secret. Many years of hearing Peter talk about his complicated past has led Magda to wonder if he is a good person: while it’s possible to count the people Peter killed, it’s impossible to count how many lives he saved in the process. Although Peter was once confident that he did what he had to do, moral doubt plagued him after the war: Margaret recalls that he used to wail at his guilt. Isolated from people that understood him, Peter fabricated a sense of peace. Over time, his nonchalance became his true nature—he would even call himself “the original war lover.”
In the previous chapter, Magda doubted her parents’ unconditional love and then regretted her doubt. Here, Magda doubts that her father is a good person, a similar questioning of moral character that could lead to feelings of shame if she turns out to be wrong. The uncertainty around the details of Peter’s past has created distant and mistrust between him and his daughter.
Themes
Although she isn’t afraid of Peter, Magda feels like the “child of his darkness” and guilt; now 36, she wants to know who Peter really is. When Magda tries to uncover full story at family events, Peter turns suddenly cold and refuses to talk about “such things.” Peter does not reminisce as much as other Poles, and he often expresses disdain for the Jewish boy his family sheltered. These behaviors lead Magda to wonder if Peter’s extreme guilt is because he in fact colluded with the Nazis.
Peter’s guilty silence leads Magda to wonder if Peter is a worse person than he in fact is. Here, the Jewish boy symbolizes Magda’s doubt over her father’s character. Peter disdains the Jewish boy, albeit not in the way the Nazis disdained him, but because he endangered the family. Nonetheless, his disdain throws off Magda’s certainty in Peter’s moral character.
Themes
One day, Magda asks Peter if she can film him telling his story; Peter agrees. Peter and Magda sit side by side at the kitchen table. Before Miche—a trusted friend of Magda’s—starts filming, Peter warns Magda that he will tell his story only this one time.
The fact that Magda films Peter telling his story suggests that she wants a record of this rare moment of confession. Peter’s life is so interesting to Magda that she would like the opportunity to learn more about it by watching the film over time.
Themes
Peter talks for six hours. During this time, he describes a German (the first Peter ever met) slapped his face, Peter vowed to never forgive the Germans. In 1940, the Ghetto was created, and the Poles had to move to make room for the Jews. Former members of the Polish army hid weapons to prepare for resistance. Peter formed a group to go around playing petty pranks on the Germans; he went to Pawiak prison and wrote messages of revenge on the walls, carrying a gun in case he got caught. He wasn’t a coward, but he wasn’t a hero either—he was just “stupid,” he explains.
Peter’s resistance efforts did not originate from a righteous reason, but rather a petty conflict: that a German randomly slapped him in the face. This substantiates what Peter means when he says that he was “stupid,” not heroic. It also removes unnecessary glorification of those seen as “heroes.” Rather than the war being made up of heroes and cowards, the war was made up of individuals who had their own reasons, big and small, for their actions.
Themes
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Magda asks if Peter was fearless because he was young; Peter says that there is nothing he fears now. He explains how the Poles wrote birth certificates for the Jews, forging the signatures of priests who died in concentration camps. All of Peter’s friends—boys ages 15-17—were guilty of something against the Germans; not wanting to acknowledge the danger in which their actions put them, they didn’t tell their parents. Peter did not fear death, but Magda knows that he feared torture: back then, a person’s self-worth and safety was based on how well they could withstand torture.
When the war began, Peter and his friends were teenagers, the age when people typically start to consider careers, education, and pursue relationships. In place of these typical teenage activities, Peter committed what—in a non-war time—would be considered crimes. Instead of on talents of the intellect or creativity, Peter based his self-worth on bravery. This abnormal teenage experience shows how war consumes and redefines every part of life.
Themes
Making a gun with his hands and pointing it at Magda, Peter demonstrates how he disarmed Germans. When Magda asks how Peter got his first gun, Peter fidgets uncomfortably. Finally, he says that he took the gun—the “toy”—by killing its owner, a German woman whom he knew. Feeling sick, Magda wants Peter to stop talking. His voice turning objective, Peter says that he took guns from his German classmates who were being trained as “little Nazis”; if one of the boys caught him, Peter killed him. Picking invisible crumbs off his lap, Peter says that it was either “them or us.”
Although Peter acted in the name of survival just as other boys were doing, his actions nonetheless bastardized his personality. In recounting the gun violence, Peter uses a cold tone and resorts to childish playacting as demonstration. However, the action of picking at nonexistent crumbs suggests that Peter is anxious and sheepish during the discussion. Though he couldn’t help but be made monstrous by his past actions, he has always been ashamed of the transformation.
Themes
Making eye contact, Magda and Peter exchange sheepish smiles. Magda, “terrified for [Peter’s] soul,” realizes that Peter feels overwhelming guilt over what he did in the name of good. Magda asks how old Peter was the first time he killed someone. Looking stricken, Peter says that he can’t remember, then he lets out a hollow laugh. Pointing his finger gun at Magda again, Peter says that he felt neither remorse nor excitement. Looking at the camera, Peter says that he is not interested in the past; though he’s not proud of what he did, he can sleep at night. He concludes that the threat of torture pushed people do things they swore they would never do. After filming, Magda puts the tapes away and can’t watch them for 16 years.
Peter’s mannerisms reveal a lot about his character. His action of pointing a finger gun at Magda is unsettling. It is as though he is reliving his past murders—and perhaps even getting a feel for what it would be like to use a gun on someone again. Alternatively, his looking straight into the camera suggests an ownership of his past behavior, despite the fact that it shames him. Expressing boldness, the direct gaze seems to show that Peter’s ultimate courage is to be able to accept his past actions and move forward with his life.
Themes
