After The War Theme Essay

One of the many themes presented in the novel "After the War" is that sometimes, even living is an act of courage. This theme is shown multiple times throughout the book. One example of this theme is when Sarah lived in a dark and malodorous sewer for a year and a half. Another example is Jonathan 's story, when he explained how he took care of his brother, and found Zvi. And how Ruth continued fighting on during her flashbacks, and near the end of the book, when she was feeling suicidal. Sarah is a great example of the theme of courage because, in the novel, her story is that she and her family escaped from the Nazis when they attacked their town, by hiding in the sewers. Sarah describes the sewer as "dark and scary" and that it "smelled awful". She explains that her father paid a sewage worker to take care of them, and they slept on boards over the water. The sewage worker brought her family books, such as the Torah, and a maths book, and they

Throughout her entire journey, Ruth experienced flashbacks to her time in the concentration camps, and when she lost her family and her friends. These flashbacks included seeing her parents being pulled apart by Nazis, as her mother and sister were forced towards the gas chamber, as well as when she was almost dead, and laying on a pile of dead bodies, waiting for the Nazis to shoot her. She is constantly haunted by the faces of those she lost and those she had to leave behind. Despite the fact that she faced these memories constantly, she kept fighting through them, and she made her way to Palestine, where she was reunited with her brother. When she arrived, however, she was taken as a prisoner to the island of Cyprus, and there, she battled severe depression, after the death of her friend, Saul, and she considered taking her own life. Nevertheless, she fought through her depression, with the help of Nate and Zvi, and she made it back home to