Three passages

What's the importance?


Page 134.
"And nothing I could say could spoil it?" she said.
"Nothing," I said.
"All right," she said, "I have something to say that I was afraid to say before. I'm not afraid to say it now."
"Say away!" I said lightly.
"I'm not Helga," she said. "I'm her little sister Resi."

Mainly, I picked this passage because this is such a great way to relate this post to the idea of nation of two, which was a big part of my last post in the poem. Starting off, so called Helga, who we found out is actually Resi, starts out by talking to Howard about love. She talks to him about their souls being in love, and then, she questions it just a little. She asks him if he is sure taht he has that feeling for her, and he says, with a lot of confidence, that he does. Finally, she asks him if anything she says could or would change his mind about that, and Howard answers no. So then...she tells him that she is Resi. Tells him that she is not the woman who he was in love with, but her little sister. This is where everything started to get a little shady for me. As soon  as I found out that Resi was lying, I got suspicious. This made me question her actions and words from here on now, and of coure, we later find out that she's a Russian and was in on the plan to get Howard arrested. That is the main reason why I picked this passage, for me, it was the turning point in the story for a lot of things, such as the trust and love that was revolved around Howard.
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Page 162.
"The New York Daily News suggested that my biggest war crime was not killing myself like a gentleman. Presumably Hitler was a gentleman."

As soon as I read this, I underlined and circled and boxed in this quote. This really caught my attention. Howard starts off this chapter by talking about the people who are volunteering to catch or kill him. He explains how hw understands their point of view, and then, starts giving examples from newspapers. Examples that explain to us that he really is hated in the society. He even says that the police would be willing to give him the protection of a battalion of Marines, because his enemies were so numerous and murderous. But then, he says this. That the New York Daily News said that he should have been a gentleman, just like Hitler, and killed himself. I had to stop and re-read this, because it didn't make any sense to me. Howard ended up being such a good spy, that he even fooled the country that he was working for...and now, he was hated all over the world. People went as far as caling Hitler, of all people, Hitler, a gentleman, only to insult Howard. This is the part of the reading where you have to do a double take, and really let this sink in, because this is a very powerful and deep statement.
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Page 211.
"I knew them for what they were, but the fact remained that they were all I had."

This very well related to the poem as well. The big idea about being alone in the nation of two plays in here. Being alone, mainly. After talking to Wirtanen, and finding out that Kraft and Resi were actually Russian agents who are actually against him, he still goes back to them. After he was told that he would be captured, arrested, and raided if he went back, he still does it. I have a feeling that, after Helga died and he found Resi and Kraft, he did not want to go back to being alone anymore. This really touched me, the fact that, after finding out that they were spies, he went back to them, mainly because he loved Resi and Kraft was a true friend for him. This is definitely something I would mention in any writing that asks for an important passage in the story, because he even admits that he knows that they're spies and against him, but goes back to them.

Found Poem #2

Alone in the Nation of Two

Howard:
Only one thing counted-
The nation of two,
and when that nation ceased to be,
I became what I am and will be.

A stateless person.

Kraft:
When my wife died, I had no allegiance...
to ANYTHING on earth. I too...
was a meaningless fragment of a nation of two...

I discovered something I had never known before,
what a true friend
was.
I throw my lot in with you gladly, friend.
Nothing else interests and attracts me.
With your permission, my paints and
I would like to go wherever
Fate takes you next.

Howard:
This is a true friendship indeed.

I used quotes from pages 43, 156, and 157. I identified the speaker of each quote. The main poetic techniques I used were rhyming and starting a good amount of my lines with the same thing, such as "I". The lines that are supposed to rhyme have the rhyming word(s) underlined so it's easier to tell. I also tried to make "nation of two" stand out by making them italicized. What I mainly tried focusing on was being alone in the nation of two, something Kraft and Howard both shared. Howard said that after his wife left him, he felt like he was a stateless person. Kraft called himself a meaningless fragment of a nation of two. To me, both of those things sound very similar to each other. And, to add on to that, Howard calls it a true friendship, because they can relate to each other, and even though Kraft was some-what in on the plan to arrest Howard, I think he honestly did feel like they were good friends. I think what he said about following Howard wherever fate takes him was a sincere statement by Kraft. In my opinion, friendship and being alone are a good part of this book. Being alone also goes along with the main theme of this book, which is identity. Howard and Kraft both lost their wives, who truly loved, and they lost that portion of their life which was having a nation of two with the person you love. They were left there, by themselves, like they didn't even belong. In my opinion, this portion of the book is really important. It caught my attention.