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The Prison Warden
The driver who allows Michael to hitchhike with him to Struthof, a nearby concentration camp. When Michael tells the driver where he is going, the man rants that it was not hatred of the Jews, orders, or obedience that led to their mass murder, but rather indifference. When the driver describes in detail the mentality of a particular soldier killing Jews in a photograph, Michael asks the driver if he was the soldier—and is kicked out of the car.
The Driver Quotes in The Reader
The The Reader quotes below are all either spoken by The Driver or refer to The Driver. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Part 2, Chapter 14 Quotes
“You're right, there was no war, and no reason for hatred. But executioners don't hate the people they execute, and they execute them all the same. Because they're ordered to? You think they do it because they're ordered to? And you think that I'm talking about orders and obedience, that the guards in the camps were under orders and had to obey?” He laughed sarcastically. “No, I'm not talking about orders and obedience. An executioner is not under orders. He's doing his work, he doesn't hate the people he executes, he's not taking revenge on them, he's not killing them because they're in his way or threatening him or attacking him. They're a matter of such indifference to him that he can kill them as easily as not.”
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Explanation and Analysis:
Hitchhiking to Struthof, a nearby concentration camp, Michael is forced to listen to his antagonistic driver’s argument that it was not orders, obedience, or hatred that caused the Nazis to kill, but rather indifference. Though Michael is reluctant to believe this, the driver’s opinion is similar to Michael’s previously expressed belief that Hanna had fallen into her job with the SS out of ignorance, and she continued to do her job because of a kind of willful indifference. The driver’s claim about indifference also recalls Hannah Arendt’s theory about the “banality of evil” and her argument that Adolf Eichmann organized Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident e
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The Driver Character Timeline in The Reader
The timeline below shows where the character The Driver appears in The Reader. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Part 2, Chapter 14
...“clichés,” Michael decides to visit Struthof, a concentration camp in Alsace. He hitchhikes, and his driver asks him why he is visiting the camp. Michael tells him about the trial and...
(full context)
Expecting Michael to contradict him, the driver assumes that he was raised to believe in “human dignity” and “reverence for life,” mockingly...
(full context)
