Written task: "Dear all"

Dear teacher and dear class:

     

       I´m writing this letter for you to know my situation on this moment, as you must know as I´m a Jew I´ve been sent to work on a factory because of the war and the Nazis government, that´s why I left school as the other Jew boys. My yellow star, my religion and believes are now deciding my destiny. Before you come with any prejudices, I have to say that the only reason I´m writing this letter is for you that are most of my loving people to know about my actual situation. I don´t want you to feel sorry for me or anything like.

     First of all, I want to tell you that I miss very much the school and you my classmates; to wake up in the morning, walk and wait outside the classroom with a terrible cold, to say good morning to the teacher, to listen to the jokes in the class, to play hide and seek, even to listen to the boring classes of grammar, every detail, every little thing from school. Now, I also have to apologize because of not saying good bye to all of you in person, I didn´t take the relevance of the situation and I hope you´ll understand if you never get to see me again.

        For starting I will tell you what I do everyday instead of going to school. I wake up every morning very early and take a bus with more Jew people, I don´t know exactly how much time we travel but I know that is very far from town. I get together with a group of more a less eighteen boys of around my age, the workplace is in a place called Csepel, at a company called “Shell Petroleum Refinery Works”. I´m living a very ironic situation; I have a privilege because of working here, I´ve acquired identity papers to travel outside city limits, for other people wearing yellow stars this is firmly forbidden. If you think that this is going worst you are wrong, actually the work is very entertaining, it consist on assisting with bricklaying duties, we have to make good damage done by an aircraft. The foreman whom has been put under, treats us decently so at the moment, making a balance, the situation is not so bad and I try to look always the positive side of things. As my uncle Lajos advised to me after I left; “we must accept God´s ordinances in regard to us”. As you may not believe, my behavior had been outstanding on the factory, I can´t complain so much, the work isn´t particularly strenuous and I have some entertainment with my other Jew partners. The work isn´t so bad, I have other problems on my head that have nothing to do with the Nazis or for being Jewish. My father left the city to work in another place and I´ve been receiving letters from him and he is fine. Now, my mother and stepmother are causing me trouble with the love and things like that and I´m not really interested actually. By the way, I thought a lot about telling you this but a few days ago I had my first kiss! It was a particular situation with a girl from where I live, her name is Annamarie and she is also Jewish. During the alert from Friday night we began closer than before, we kissed, so I believe that we were in a sort of relationship. If we ever meet again I can tell you the details! Suddenly all this “love story” ended because of her sudden behavior change and I guess because I argued with her older sister about a personal issue from her. I´m not sure, I waited for her without realizing how important was that issue for her and her family, I only presented my opinion from my point of view and I feel proud about it. Although I feel bad about the situation, Annamarie was a great company for these moments and I miss her, not saying that I´m in love and she broke my heart but I liked spending time with her and do all the kissing.

       Far enough this have been my live since I went that day to school to excuse myself with a letter communicating my “family reasons”, now you know everything, hope I will not regret if I come back and you start mocking about Annamarie. I´m sorry if I told to much personal information, but as I said before you are the people that I care the most and if I have to confess something I will always do with you. I really don´t want this to be the last communication between us, but as you must know I may will be sent to a concentration camp or to labor service and are places in which survival is for the luckiest people. I will do my best for being one of them and have the opportunity to see you all again. If I don´t, consider this as my good bye and always try to remember me wherever you go.

Proudly accepting any destiny,

George.

Rationale:

I have chosen to write a letter from George to his teacher and class of the novel “Fatelessness”. I did this because I think that writing a letter is the best way for doing a free narration of the events of the few chapters that we have read already, as I used a letter I´m free to create new details from the characters and also support information by reading the novel.

The audiences for the letter were the teacher and George classmates. The language used on the letter is mostly formal because of the presence of the teacher in the audience, perhaps it have some informal language when George directs specifically to his classmates. He tells a lot of information that could consider “personal” so it has to be considered that the relation between George and his class is very close.

It was used on this letter some aspects that we studied on the course. The tone used is likely serious and formal in some parts or in another ironic/happy and informal. The letter take different tones and modes, this happens because of the affective relation between author-audience and also the sensitive issues from George´s life that produces changes.

In the letter George refers to his objective by writing the letter so we have clearness on that sense that he only wanted to communicate his situation, in any case produce sensitiveness to the audience. Perhaps this we can think by the way the author express himself that is an affective letter and may produce emotions from the audience.

The task is set on the end of the Chapter 2 when supposedly George writes a letter for his classmates and teacher. At this part of the novel, George (Jew boy) was working on a factory because of the Nazis government (ideology of anti-Semitism) and not assisting anymore to the Grammar school. The Jews were obligated to work and to go to concentration camps. The actions are happening on the 1940´s on the beginning of the Second World War and the Holocaust.