The Sunflower

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Using The Sunflower Discussion Questions, as well as anything else from Simon’s opening narrative, type a 3-5 paragraph response explaining what questions or considerations are most crucial in order to address Simon’s question. If you refer to specific passages from The Sunflower, please be sure to cite the page numbers in a parenthetical ( ).

At the end of The Sunflower Simon Wiesenthal writes, “You, who have just read this sad and tragic episode in my life, can mentally change places with me and ask yourself the crucial question, ‘What would I have done?’”

But this is not an easy question.It contains many difficult moral and philosophical considerations embedded in the context.As you think about your potential response to Simon’s question, note what aspects of the situation you would need to consider most deeply.

Using The Sunflower Discussion Questions, as well as anything else from Simon’s opening narrative, type a 1-2 page response explaining what questions or considerations are most crucial in order to address Simon’s question.If you refer to specific passages from The Sunflower, please be sure to cite the page numbers in a parenthetical ( ).

The following are some questions to consider, but are certainly not exhaustive:

What are the differences between forgiveness, repentance, and atonement?Are they all necessary to consider in Simon’s situation?
Do you think Karl would have confessed to Simon if he were not on his deathbed?Should this be taken into account when considering whether or not to grant him forgiveness? (page 54)
On page 66 Simon writes of Karl, “Obviously he was not born a murderer nor did he want to be a murderer.It was the Nazis who made him kill defenseless people.” Was Karl a construction of his context, or did he have free will to choose?How should this affect how we judge Karl’s actions?
Does Simon, who was not a direct victim of Karl, have a right to forgive him?If yes, why?If not, why not? (page 65)
What makes a person worthy of forgiveness?Is the only condition “genuine repentance” as Bolek claims?
Should we, who were not victims of the Holocaust, even consider Simon’s question from our historical distance and privileged lives?
To what degree was silence an appropriate response/non-response?
Are there any other significant questions that you can think of?

 

Sample Solution

pportunities for women’ (Colman, P. 1995, n/a). To elaborate, due to men going away to war, women had to become more active in the labour force and the idea of woman became more frequently synonymous with working people, bringing the concept of the working woman. Since musical theatre always strived to reflect real life, it made sense that this change offered a whole new side to women which was used in musical theatre as new interesting roles to represent the everchanging roles in society.

This can be seen in the Rodgers and Hammerstein show Oklahoma (1943), when instead of seeing a group of chorus girls opening the show, which was more common in the revue where ‘as many as 280 chorus girls might be used;’ (Mates, 1987, p.148), the curtains rose to reveal the simple scene of a woman churning butter, something that at this time would be considered a normal task. As theatre has always strived to represent real life, as previously mentioned, this shows how women were becoming less seen as objectified entertainment and more as hardworking people.

This idea of the working woman was additionally exemplified by real women working in the show business industry. Once again using Oklahoma as an example, we can look at the work of Agnes de Mille who was said to have revolutionised the way dance was utilised in musical theatre. This was done with her dream ballet scene in which dance was integrated into the storyline of the musical for the first time. It was said in the book ‘America’s Musical Stage’ by Julian Mates, ‘Agnes de Mille’s dream-sequence dances moved the story forward, so much so that no musical with serious pretensions could do without a dream ballet for years to come.’ (Mates, 1987, p.190). This shows the strength of the impact de Milles work had on later shows and the way dance was used in musical theatre. Others saw the magnitude of success achieved by this new style of choreography and how it aided the progression of the storyline of the musical itself, and through this realised that it was something that could and should be replicated through other works of

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