Previous
Building on Bahnhofstrasse
Eight years into Hanna’s term in prison, Michael makes a series of cassette tapes of himself reading books aloud to her. The tapes are, in a way, a resurrection of their previous relationship, as Michael would always read aloud to Hanna before they slept together. Though the cassettes represent Michael’s continuing connection to Hanna and his way of speaking to her, they also represent Michael’s distance. Michael never leaves Hanna any personal messages on the tapes nor writes back to her when she finally learns how to read. The tapes form the “small niche, certainly an important niche” that Michael dedicates to Hanna, but no more than that.
Cassette Tapes Quotes in The Reader
The The Reader quotes below all refer to the symbol of Cassette Tapes. 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 3, Chapter 5
Quotes
I also read books I already knew and loved. So Hanna got to hear a great deal of Keller and Fontane, Heine and Morike. For a long time I didn't dare to read poetry, but eventually I really enjoyed it, and I learned many of the poems I read by heart. I can still say them today.
Taken together, the titles in the notebook testify to a great and fundamental confidence in bourgeois culture. I do not ever remember asking myself whether I should go beyond Kafka, Frisch, Johnson, Bachmann, and Lenz, and read experimental literature, literature in which I did not recognize the story or like any of the characters. To me it was obvious that experimental literature was experimenting with the reader, and Hanna didn't need that and neither did I.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Reader LitChart as a printable PDF.
Cassette Tapes Symbol Timeline in The Reader
The timeline below shows where the symbol Cassette Tapes appears in The Reader. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Part 3, Chapter 5
...Michael separates from Gertrud, he becomes restless. Feeling haunted by Hanna, he records himself on tape reading The Odyssey and other works aloud. Eventually, eight years into Hanna’s prison sentence, he...
(full context)
Part 3, Chapter 6
Four years after Michael starts sending Hanna the tapes, Hanna sends him a hand-written note thanking him. The handwriting looks like child’s writing, but...
(full context)
Part 3, Chapter 8
...aloud to her. Though Michael does not outwardly agree, he cannot see himself either recording tapes for her or reading to her in person. He tells her how proud he was...
(full context)
Part 3, Chapter 10
...warning signs during their phone call, how they knew each other, why he sent the tapes, and how he knew she was illiterate. Michael tells her that he hadn’t noticed anything...
(full context)
The warden tells him that Hanna taught herself to read with Michael’s tapes by comparing the sound recording to books she borrowed from the prison library. As Michael...
(full context)
