- Athos
- Bella
- Alex
- Michaela
- Maurice and Irena
- Kostas and Daphne
B. What has been Jakob's struggle as a boy and as an adult throughout Part I of the novel? How is it finally resolved? Explain the significance of the ending of Part I.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Quiz--Reading
A. Identify the following characters in Fugitive Pieces. In a few sentences, describe the role they play in Jakob's life and how they contribute to the narrative.
B. What has been Jakob's struggle as a boy and as an adult throughout Part I of the novel? How is it finally resolved? Explain the significance of the ending of Part I.
B. What has been Jakob's struggle as a boy and as an adult throughout Part I of the novel? How is it finally resolved? Explain the significance of the ending of Part I.
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William Keller
Athos origionally serves as a vessel for Jakob to retreat to. He serves as Jakob's support and inspiration and their relationship evolves into a symbiotic one in which both of them benefit from. They support each other and give meaning to the other. Athos is a foil for Jakob, serving as a reflection for him. Athos is elderly and a fountain of knowledge and Jakob is young and the spong that absorbs it.
Bella is both a literal and figurative ghost for Jakob. It's her lingering essence that haunts him yet it's the fact that she might still exist, somewhere that achieves the same effect. Though it may seem like Bella's presence may be reassuring to Jakob, it's actually part of what keeps him from restoring himself. It leaves him lingering in the past rather than allowing him to accept her loss and move on.
Alex serves as a temporary replacement for Athos. This is why they end up moving apart and ending their marriage. The relationship between them is no longer mutual as time passes. Jakob uses Alex as an escape from Bella, he uses her presence to hide but even then she still manages to haunt him. Jakob remains holding on soaking up every last ounce of juice that is already gone. Alex no longer benefits from the relationship nad Jakob is a lost cause. Then she leaves.
Michaela is Jakob's water. She is what first begins to restore him and becomes his new fence, his new vine. Jakob gains the support and nurturing from Michaela that he needed. This is when he beings to forget about Bella, forget about the loss. He begins to restore himself with help from Michaela. She becomes his new Athos.
Kostas and Daphne serve as a net for Jakob. It's not something that holds him up, but something that keeps him where he is, to prevent him from falling. They're not a replacement but more of a safety net. They're not temporary either. Even after their death, they'll always be there to catch him if he falls.
Maurice and Irena serve as the other half of the safety net for Jakob. They serve the same purpose as Kostas and Daphne. They're not a replacement, they're not temporary, they're an everstanding net combining Irena and Kostas' into their own. This prevents Jakob from falling deeper into despair to be haunted by Bella and his past. Michaela starts to bring him up and heals him, but if it were to ever break the net is there to save him.
A.
Athos: Athos plays sort of a guardian role in Jakob's life, also teaching him things that he probably wouldn't have known in his life. He helped Jakob grown mentally and physically.
Bella: Jakob's sister plays a big role in his life. She almost seems to tourment him with her death even after the first couple of chapters are done. Bella is like a lingering image that he carries with him through out his life.
B. Jakob's struggle was the fight with himself and how he lingered in the past but with Athos around he was sort of able to move ahead and not worry so much about the past but with the death of Athos he started again to go down hill. Until he was stopped by this good friend and saved from comepletly losing himself.
Well Ms. Gamzon that's as good as it's going to get.
Sharliery A. Garcia
1. Athos, Jakob’s rescuer, has an interesting relationship with Jakob. Both are emotionally dependent on one another, and Athos also provides for Jakob in an almost paternal way. Athos teaches Jakob English and Greek, and helps to bring him away from the nightmarish events of his past. Athos not only saves Jakob from dying, he tries to save him from being consumed by depression, and give him a more full life.
2. Jakob’s sister Bella, though she dies in the first few pages, is a constant, haunting presence in Jakob’s life. Jakob’s obsession with Bella is a major part of his life that keeps him from forgetting his past entirely. Throughout the novel, there are references made to Jakob losing his past by learning new words. Jakob’s memories, however, keep him from divorcing himself from his pre-Athos life forever.
3. Jakob’s first wife, Alex, contributes to the novel most by showing us something about Jakob. As their marriage deteriorates, the true degree to which Jakob is entrenched in his past is revealed. Still haunted and consumed by his thoughts of Bella, Jakob is not fully living in the present, and it finally, truly hurts him.
4. Maurice and Irena, like Kostas and Daphne before them, are more stable forces in Jakob’s life. They are his friends, and Jakob can almost interact with them on a more normal level, without being reminded too much of the past he can not fully escape.
5. While Jakob is staying with Kostas and Daphne in Athens, they provide him with relative stability. They also help to fill in the gaps of the war. They, like Athos, attempt to comfort Jakob, and relieve his suffering. While they, again like Athos, are not necessarily successful, they do connect with Jakob, and are a major part of his moving forward with his life.
Zoe Johnson
A. Athos is the character in Fugitive Pieces that holds the most influence over Jacob’s life. Athos is Jacob’s savior—he dug Jacob out of the thick dark soil of Biskupin and brought him to Zakynthos, Greece. There, Athos filled Jacob’s head with geology, literature, and history. Athos built up Jacob, helped him to move forward out of his memories of his past and his lost family, forward into knowledge, into new languages, into love. Jacob says of his relationship with Athos: “We were a vine and a fence. But who was the vine? We would both have answered differently.”
B. Bella is central to Jacob’s tormented memories of his past. Bella’s fate, unlike that of Jacob’s parents, is unknown to Jacob. He has no closure. The possibility of her prolonged existence tormented him. Jacob’s memories of Bella’s piano playing, her long dark hair-a “muscle down her back”- her fingers tracing letters and numbers on his back, her stories and books are interwoven in Jacob’s mind with his present day romances. Jacob’s memories of Bella enhance the message of vertical time—his longing for the past, for his sister is pungent in his present-day relationships.
C. Alex is Jacob’s first wife. She is a vibrant and energetic character. She constantly coming into the apartment that she and Jacob share and turning on lights. She, like Athos, is trying to bring Jacob of his past, but her method is less patient, more sudden and jarring: “Athos replaced parts of me slowly, as if he were preserving wood. But Alex—Alex wants to explode me, set fir to everything. She wants me to begin again.” When Alex’s efforts to turn on lights, to prevent Jacob from sitting in the dark, wallowing in his memories, do not succeed, she turns away; she goes to bars and night clubs, leaving Jacob in his darkness and finally leaving his life all together.
D. Michaela is Athos’ second wife. She provides Jacob with healing after all support systems but Maurice and Irena have gone. She feeds him her own memories, her own ancestors. Jacob is shocked at his “hunger for her memories.” Her memories heel Jacob in a way that is two fold: they fill the hole of Jacob’s lost memories and they bind with Jacob’s own painful existing memories in order to somehow make them more fulfilling, more rounded and whole. Michaela bring about healing through union (“Each night heals gaps between us until we are joined by the scar of dreams”) while Jacob’s relationship with Alex seemed to work in the opposite direction (“The longer I hold her, the further Alex recedes from my touch”). By filling the hole in Jacob’s past, Michaeala finishes the work that Athos started and brings him to the present, even if only for a moment at a time: “I slip free the knot and float, suspended in the present.”
E. Maurice and Irena are Jacob’s only remaining friends after Athos’ death and Alex’s leaving him. They are the sole remaining anchor that keeps Jacob from slipping back into memories of his dead family, dead Athos, lost Alex; they keep him grounded in the present. Maurice and Irena visit Jacob in Greece. When he doubts his ability to revisit the places of Athos’ past life alone, Maurice and Irena help to guide him forward, cushioning the tension and pain with laughter and camaraderie.
F. Kostas and Daphne are friends of Athos. When Jacob was still young, he and Athos visited Kostas and Daphne in Athens. Kostas and Daphne provide Athos and Jacob with food, with shelter, with conversation, and in this sense provide them with communion. Through the conversations of Athos and Kostas and Daphne, Jacob learns of the atrocities that were committed and the wrongs done to the Jews. This information intermingles with Jacob’s memories of his life before his family was gone. Kostas and Daphne provide a base, a sense of home, to Jacob. Years later he returns to the house of Daphne and Kostas, he knows they are dead, and Athos gone, the house owned by someone else. Nevertheless, Kostas and Daphne provided Athos with a base, a home, a place of welcoming and belonging to return to.
When we first meet Jakob, his struggle was a physical one. The fact that he had to escape and hide from the Nazis proved to be stressful enough, but there was also the mental struggle, fighting to let go and hold onto the memory of his family and their deaths. Having Bella haunt him was the greatest struggle of all. He was afraid that he was disturbing them as he hung on to them, he revered to it on page 25, saying “When I woke, my anguish was specific: the possibility that it was painful for them to be remembered as it was painful for me to remember them; that I was haunting my parents and Bella with my calling, startling them away in their black beds.” Athos saved Jakob from, not only by rescuing Jakob from the archeological dig but also from himself. He turned his grief into something useful, with writing poetry and history itself. Jakob had so much support in all the people that touched him. Those who died live in his memory, his mother, father, Bella, Athos, his collection.
As an adult he struggled still with the death of Bella letting her still haunt him, trying to put her to rest in his mind. At first letting Alex in helped, but after awhile it was no comfort. Bella haunts him with everything he does, on page 170, Jakob says “…tried to will my parents and Bella from my sleep, this will amounts to nothing…” His memory of Bella is tied to Alex, and that undoes him in a way, and when she left it was as if he was lost again. Falling in love with Michaela saves him from Bella, he was able to let go.
The ending of part one is significant because it is hope, finally letting go and accepting his life and what has happened so far. The end paragraph is so wonderful, “May you never be deaf to love.” “I saved myself without thinking.” I love those two lines, because finally everything is okay, and he can look to the future without fear of loosing his family, he has finally put them to rest.
Jakob struggled with boundaries, in different ways through different points of his life. When he escaped form his house knowing that his mother and father were dead, he had to deal with boundaries; “She was stopping to say goodbye and was caught, in such pain, wanting to rise, wanting to stay. It was my responsibility to release her, a sin to keep her from ascending.” He wanted to hold on to his mother, not letting her go, but he knew that he must in order for her spirit to move on.
Bella is the character that Jakob has the hardest time to let go of and separate them with his boundaries. With her memory he feels guilt for leaving her behind, not seeing either she had died or been captured or escaped for herself. This adds to his guilt which makes the boundaries harder than necessary. Boundaries can mean different things to different people. It could mean putting more space between two things or bringing them closer together. It could mean letting your wall down and having someone know the truth, the story behind you. Or building the wall higher to protect yourself from your surroundings, the things that you do not want to come in.
In his memoirs he lets up see all these stages of boundaries, most of them revolve around the things that haunt him from his life before Athos. He put more space in between him and Alex, not intentionally doing it but, by withdrawing and letting his dark memories and despair try to over come him. However, he saw that, he recognized that he was pushing her away “To Alex’s father, to Maurice and Irena, Alex has walked out on me. But it’s I who have abandoned her.” He stays within his nightmare filled walls until he meets Michaela. He tells her everything “-her heart an ear, her skin an ear. Michaela is crying for Bella.”
This is when his walls for the first time in his life, not for Athos, not for Kostas and Daphne, not for anyone before her. At this moment he is set free “I finally fall asleep, the first sleep of my life…” You see Jakob for Jakob not this person that is being tortured by things he fells that he can not let go. I think this is when he becomes a human for the first time; he is not a shell of memories past or by current nightmares. He becomes truly happy and content. The ending he starts mentioning his children, the ones he longs to have. The last paragraph in Book I is a wonderful, beautiful ending to sum up how Jakob survived all his hardships to keep going on to one day pass down his strength and to let his children know how much they would have meant to him, if they had ever existed.
Athos:
A Nazi scientist Athos decided to Jakob’s guardian after his parents’ death. Athos found Jakob in a pile of mud in the woods. Athos was a big part of Jakob’s life because he taught him scientific things and boards his education. Athos told Jakob a lot of stories about men and their inventions. Athos was kind of hard on Jakob when it comes to education.
Bella:
Bella was Jakob’s sister and was taken away by the Nazi when she was fifteen. Throughout the book Jakob describe Bella has a beautiful girl. For example he said her hair is like black syrup, thick and luxurious, a muscle down her back. Bella took care of Jakob and their father when they were younger. Bella also helped Jakob with his spelling and other school subjects. When his mother and father got took away from the Nazi’s, Bella didn’t scream or shout and he was worried about her.
Kostas and Daphne:
Kostas and Daphne are friends of Athos and met him when they went to college. Athos music was so inspiring to Kostas and Daphne they decided to get marry after hearing one of his songs. Kostas was a scientist just like Athos and was Athos’s roommate in college. Kostas and Daphne wasn’t a big part in Jakob’s life, just some close good friends.
Alex:
Alex described in this book was a beautiful and intelligent girl. She comes from a good background which her father is a doctor. Athos seems to have a little crush on Alex, which he knew Alex from college. Alex reminds Jakob of his sister and how beautiful she is; how long her hair is. Jakob thinks Alex is Bella’s ghost.
Maurice and Irena:
Maurice and Irena wasn’t the most joyful of people. Every time Alex will chill with them they seem to dislike her. They didn’t say it with words they will do it with action. For example if Alex would hug Irena goodnight she’ll give her a little hug. Jakob seen that same welcome to; Maurice and Irena are like haters. They weren’t good influences in his life.
1.Athos was a father figure to Jakob. On page 14 of the book Athos said: “I will be your koumbaros, your godfather, the marriage sponsor for you and your sons…..” He also said: “We must carry each other. If we don’t have this, what are we…?
2.Bella plays the role of Jakob’s sister. When she died she was his memory of his family. He seemed to admire her deeply. Whenever he thought of her or his mother and father he seemed to compare them to the pain he was going through. For example: On page 9 it said, “Soon I couldn’t avoid absurdity of daylight even by closing my eyes. It poked down, pinned me like the broken branches, like my father’s beard. Then I felt the worst shame of my life: I pierced with hunger. And suddenly I realized, my throat aching without sound-Bella.”
3.When Jakob first saw Alex she instantly became her crush. On page130 is says “This unsettled innocence was like iron fillings to a magnet; she was everywhere on my heart, spiky and charged, itchy and there to stay.” They were together for at least 5 years. When ever Jakob was with Alex he seemed to think less of Bella. It was as if Alex was a temporary replacement of Bella. As time goes on they eventually divorce.
4.Michaela is an administrator at the museum who is also someone who Maurice tries to hook Jakob with since he is no longer married. As time goes on he grows intimate with her and sooner or later marrys her.
5.Maurice and Irena-Maurice was a graduate student. He married Irena and was a good friend to Jakob’s especially when he was in trouble. They were like temporary friends. One that he can call on if ever needed help. Since Jakob and Alex where married they were like there married couple friends, but they seemed to always be there for Jakob.
6.Kostas was known as Professor Mitsialis and Daphne was Kostas wife. They were old friends of Athos. They where like teachers and god-parents to Jakob. They were there to help him whenever he fell or lost his balance. They were there for a while to help Athos raise him until they died.
Michaela:
Michaela was Jakob’s wife and Jakob was scared to even see her. He described her hair glossy and heavy and parted on the side. Michaels was twenty-five years older than Jakob. Michaela was an important part in Jakob’s life because she teaches him about love, life and keeps him going.
1. Athos found Jakob in a puddle of mud while he was excavating the mud at Biskupin. Athos took Jakob back home with him to Zakynthos and Jakob was educated by Athos. The things that Jakob learned here add to the narrative because he compares what he’s learned to what’s happening or has happened in his life. For instance, on page 53 Jakob is talking about how the influence of the dead isn’t a metaphor and he compares it to a Geiger counter and magnetized minerals.
2. Bella is Jakob’s sister. He is haunted by her memory throughout Part I, and the thought of her keeps him connected to the night when the soldiers killed his family. When she was alive, Jakob always looked up to his beautiful, big-hearted sister and she loved him; while he couldn’t read and he crawled all over her to try to see the words of her book, she was patient and explained the plot to him. She contributes to the narrative because she represents the remorse he still feels over his family. Only after a while does Jakob bring up Bella in his writing while Alex is in his life. He calls her a “water stain” on “the map of history”, meaning that she isn’t such a prominent stain like a coffee stain or a strawberry juice stain; her memory is almost faint, but still alive all the same.
3. Alex is Jakob’s wife. She is this new, spirited woman in Jakob’s life that almost brings him away from his memory. She always has something to say, something to do. “Meeting Alex at the music library was like a gift of a beautiful bird on the windowsill. She was like freedom just over the border, an oasis in the sand”. The last sentence illustrates that she takes him away from his haunted past After a while though, Jakob feels like Alex is brainwashing him, saying that he actually does want to remember his past. She adds to the narrative because the way he describes her and the way he makes her feel really shows that he’s growing up.
4. Michaela is Athos’ second wife. She becomes stability for Jakob and he longs for her memories of Athos.
5. After Athos’ death and Alex’s departure, Maurice and Irena are Jakob’s closest friends. Maurice and Irena keep Jakob from feeling completely lost by caring for him. They keep Jakob from disappearing into his lost memories of his family, Athos, and Alex.
6. While still in Greece, Athos and Jakob stay with Kostos and Daphne. At first, Jakob feels awkward eating “breakfast with strangers” but soon everyone becomes more comfortable with each other. Jakob learns to accept them just as part of his family. At their home, Jakob learns more about the history of the Jews.
1. Athos: Athos’ role in Jakob’s life is like a father. He is there to protect him and teach him, like father’s do. He is also like a crutch because every time Jakob needed someone he was there. Like in the beginning of the book when Jakob was alone and cold Athos took him in under his coat. They are like “vines on a fence.”
2. Bella: Bella’s role in Jakob’s life is his sister. She was placed in the novel to allow Jakob to keep on going back to the past and reminiscing. He’d remember all the times they spent together when she was still living physically, not mentally (p.9). Also there was this one part that really stood out. It speaks of how Jakob felt she was there but she could do nothing for him; she could not protect him. Although she was physically not there she lived in Jakob’s heart and mind.
3. Alex: Alex reminds Jakob a lot of his sister, Bella. She causes Jakob to visualize Bella standing there beside him. Alex was Jakob’s nickname for her. Her real name was Alexandra and she had a lot of knowledge of the British military. Alex made Jakob, Maurice and Irena feel like parents and her child. She shared the information her father gave her with Jakob and allowed him to see what she saw as a child. She marries Jakob but unfortunately it does not last and they get a divorce.
4. Michaela: Michaela was Jakob’s second wife. She shared a compassionate and intimate life with Jakob. It was with Michaela that Jakob had his first sleep and pleasant dream. She allowed him to enjoy the rest of life. Jakob loved her and he wanted to have a baby with her. He’d whisper to her stomach to the nonexistent fetus.
5. Maurice and Irena: Maurice was the last friend of Athos that Jakob met. He was a graduate student. They met in Toronto. They didn’t spend many evening together though because soon after they met Maurice Athos died. After Athos’ death, a companionship between Maurice and Jakob formed. It was the companionship that saved Jakob, and took him out of the trouble he was in. Irena became Maurice’s wife. She’d cook for Maurice and Jakob. Jakob would often glance at her reading her cookbook by the stove and then quickly turn away from his emotions.
6. Kostas and Daphne: Kostas and Daphne were friends of Athos and quickly became introduced to Jakob. Kostas and Athos met at a university. Athos and Jakob stayed with Kostas and his wife Daphne when they went to Athens.
(Athos)
In the novel Fugitive Pieces Athos plays the savior or father figure in Jacob’s life. When Jacob’s parent were killed or kidnapped by the Nazis Athos decided to be his guardian. Athos protected, fed, clothed and sheltered Jacob. He also taught him lots of things as far as basic like skills and educational factors. Previous to and while being Jacob’s guardian Athos was a German man as well as Nazi Scientist. He found Jacob in the mud.
(Bella)
In the novel Fugitive Pieces is Jacob’s sister who is silently taken away by Nazis at the tender age of fifteen. She is also a constant memory that ponders in Jacobs mind daily. Jacob loves his sister and often wonders if she’s still living. In the novel there is a beautiful description of Bella, her heavy eyebrows and magnificent hair like black syrup, thick and luxurious, a muscle down her back. Bella was a pondering memory in Jacob’s mind because when the Nazis came to his house and took his mother and father away he saw and heard them but when Bella was taken he didn’t hear her scream or anything, so his mind tended to wonder about her.
(Kostas and Daphne)
In the novel Fugitive Pieces Kostas Mitsialis was one of Athos’s old friends from college. They shared an office with one another. Kostas introduced Athos and Daphne to one another in college because Daphne was eager to meet the guy who had taken all of Kostas privacy in her office away from her. Daphne and Kostas lived on the slopes of Lykavettos in small house and played a significant role in the consistency of Jacob’s health and well being. Readers might often get the impression that Daphne and Kostas are lesbian lovers. (That what I’m thinking.)
(Alex)
In the novel Fugitive Pieces the character Alex is described basically as a beautiful young (when Athos first met her). She is very intelligent and Alex is short for Alexandria. From my understanding, I might be wrong, but Athos has a bit of an attraction to her. It might be a sexual attraction or might just be and attraction. However Alex reminds Jacob of Bella. In the novel the author describes Alex and he talks about her beautiful auburn, free flowing hair. In the previous chapters the author describes Bella’s thick and syrupy hair. Various items that belong to Alex remind Jacob of his sister Bella. In one part of the novel Jacob is looking at Alex’s robe and describes as if it were Bella’s ghost.
(Maurice and Irena)
In the novel Fugitive Pieces the characters Maurice and Irena were a married couple and old friends of Athos and Alex’s. In my opinion Maurice and Irena are what I’d call haters. They can never see the good in any situation; they’re always trying to find the negative. There are a couple who has never been and never will be satisfied with they’re own lives. There are not very significant characters as far as playing a huge role in Jacob’s life. But they’re always around Jacob so they must play a part in keeping him safe and well taking care of.
(Michaela)
In the novel Fugitive Pieces the character Michaela is Jacob’s lover. Jacob is in love with Michaela he talks about her sent. She loves the way she smells and he talks her about her waist and things of that nature. He then marries her. When Jacob is killed Michaela dies two later. She was either struck when Jacob was struck and had a very slow demise or she died of grief.
Pendle Marshall-Hallmark Ms. Gamzon
9/22/08 Fugitive Pieces
A. Identifications
1). Athos represents stability and instability in Jakob’s life. His character not only serves Jacob as a parent and friend, but also as a fellow “explorer”. It is only Athos who Jakob begins his life in Toronto with. The two of them struggle to keep their language and culture alive in a foreign land – Athos is a source of knowledge and quest for knowledge for Jakob. Athos’ death represents a coming-of-age for Jakob, who must go on to recreate himself by himself – he can no longer lean on Athos as “a vine on fence”.
2). Bella is Jakob’s dead sister who haunts his mind almost constantly. She is almost an obsession for her brother; he is reminded of her by his lovers (both Alex and Michaela). One of the interesting ideas that Jakob has towards the beginning of the novel is the idea that every time he thinks of Bella or dwells on her death, she feels pain as well as he. Bella represents the obsessive part of Jakob’s character – his obsession with Bella is a mark of his obsession with his unknown and not fully discovered past.
3). Alex is Jakob’s first wife. She is so full of life that he finds it hard to be with her, I think. He is drawn to her energy and vitality, as well as her creativity and intelligence, but she is “itchy on his heart; there to stay”. Her persona is too much for Jakob to deal, with I believe. He does not seem to be a good match to her. Alex definitely represents a lustful relationship, rather than the relationship that Jakob later has with Michaela, which is calm and almost spiritual. Eventually Jakob’s relationship with Alex comes to an end.
4). Michaela is Jakob’s second wife. She and Jacob meet through their mutual friends, Maurice and Irena. She is much more (as I mentioned above) spiritual than Alex. Her relationship with Jakob, for him, is really like a representation of Jakob’s relationship with his sister Bella. Jakob seems to see everything about his sister in Michaela – her hair, her speech, her touch all remind him of his sister. Up until his death, Jakob is married to Michaela. She is definitely the love of his life.
5). Maurice and Irena are Jakob’s friends in Toronto. He met Maurice because Maurice was a graduate student of Athos’. Maurice and Irena help Jakob to get through his break up with Alex. They help him to meet Michaela and pull him through his depression, and their children remind Jakob of Bella’s children. In other words, they are his closest friends and are almost like his siblings.
6). Kostos and Daphne are old friends of Athos’ and eventually of Jakob’s. Before they move to Toronto, Athos and Jakob stay with the couple in the midst of a political upheaval in Greece. Kostos and Daphne are sort of like parents for Jakob when he lives with them in Greece. When they encourage his poetry, he continues on to become a poet. Later on in his life, Jakob returns to their home in Greece and remembers them; Kostos has died by the time he comes back.
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