The Reader

Content Warning: This guide summarizes and discusses statutory rape, the Holocaust, and Nazi brutality, which feature in the source text.

Michael Berg is the protagonist, though the situations that propel the book make him difficult to root for. The reader might not be on Michael’s side as he continues his relationship with Hanna. They might empathize with his love for her but find his deliberation about Hanna’s guilt troubling and unsettling. Michael is introspective and spends much of the book mulling over morally weighty questions. While he strives for honesty, he can be an unreliable narrator, especially when recounting his childhood romance with Hanna.

Michael also has heroic qualities. He’s on the side of truth; he knows Hanna’s secret and that the court’s narrative is dubious. He represents a “competent defense” for Hanna and juxtaposes his searching inquiries with the court’s superficial and self-serving proceedings. With Michael’s character, the reader can see how the questions established morals. The narrative turns Hanna, a pedophile and former Nazi, into a victim, the ostensibly anti-Nazi court into oppressors, and Michael into a hero; heroes tend to ally themselves with the marginalized. While Michael doesn’t rescue her from a life sentence, he does come to her aid by sending her tapes of him reading aloud, providing her companionship during her life sentence.