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Chapter 17
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 interrogation lasts so long because Katharina is extraordinarily picky about language. She gets into an argument with Beizmenne, for instance, when he describes the behavior of the men who hit on Katharina at the parties as “amorous.” According to Katharina, “amorous” implies that she reciprocated their actions—something she fiercely denies.
Beizmenne seems determined to portray Katharina as the guilty party, describing the men’s behavior as “amorous” to suggest that she was a willing participant in their attempts at flirtation—in other words, that she is a promiscuous woman with loose morals and therefore the kind of person who might be involved in other disreputable activities. Katharina’s insistence that she was in fact a victim of unwanted “advances” falls on deaf ears, though: Beizmenne seems to interpret her attempts to defend her character as her being defensive or refusing to cooperate.
Active
Themes
