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Chapter 13
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Ethics in Journalism
Truth, Lies, and Narrative
Class, Hierarchy, and Exploitation
Dignity and Compassion
Summary
Analysis
The police escort Katharina Blum out of her apartment at 11:25 that morning. They decide against handcuffing her, though Beizmenne wanted to. Schönner is there and takes pictures of her from all angles. Katharina, humiliated, tries desperately to cover her face, resulting in photographs in which she looks angry and disheveled.
Beizmenne, unlike the other police (and unlike the reader) presumes to know the whole truth of Katharina’s situation. His desire to handcuff her suggests that he has presumed that she’s guilty, even though no evidence yet points to it. The photographs the photographer takes of an unprepared Katharina visually presume her guilt, too, casting her innocent desperation in a nefarious light and making her appear angry and disheveled.
Active
Themes
