In the novel Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels, how does the second Essay

In the novel Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels, how does the second part of the novel comment and reflect on the themes and events of the first part - Essay Example Ben’s life mirrors Jakob’s in some respects. Death is the predominant theme of the novel. At the very onset, the reader is informed of Jakob’s untimely demise in a car-accident. The events unfolded in the subsequent pages are therefore viewed through the eyes of a dead man. Thus the spectre of death looms large over the narrative. Jakob was the aural witness to the savage murder of his parents and the abduction of his beloved sister Bella. From that moment on he is haunted by the constant presence of his sister in his life. He is tormented by his abject ignorance of her fate. He reiterates his belief that the dead wield a permanent influence over the living, â€Å"It’s no metaphor to feel the influence of the dead in the world.†(Michaels, 53) Death makes its presence felt in Ben’s narrative as well. He is a child of the second generation but nevertheless he is a victim of the holocaust. His parents are living reminders of the horrors of the past and their very home is permeated with the remnants of the evil of those dark times. His situation is outlined in Jakob’s description of the mass graves in the first part, â€Å"When the prisoners were forced to dig up the mass graves, the dead entered them through their pores and were carried through their bloodstreams to their brains and heart. And through their blood into another generation.†(52) The role of history and memory in the lives of the protagonists constitutes another theme of the novel and is reiterated in the second part echoing its occurrence in the first part. Jakob and Ben are trapped in their traumatic pasts and there is no hope for fulfilment in their present lives and possibly the future as well. Jakob is repelled by history and its clinical detachment in the face of atrocity and immorality and prefers to seek recourse in the intimate confines of memory. â€Å"History is amoral: events