Nineteen Eighty-four and Treasure Chest

We came up with some good things for the treasure chest this morning (our most clever Stasiland ideas), but I keep thinking of more! These are the kind of things that I would put in my treasure chest. * Anna’s interest in understanding WHY people might choose to work for the Stasi (and by default what she learns by interviewing Stasi men). She needs to gain insight and make sense of it – and thus we go on this journey with her.  The sense that everyone has a story and was impacting by this regime * The need for many of the characters to come to terms with the past (Vergangenheitsbewaltigung) and how some are still stuck with the Mauer im Kopf. Link to this the Germans not being sure of what to do with the past as well. Think about the Hitler bunker example.

* The fact that the Stasi controlled through fear, but could not completely control the populace by dictating what was popular (the Lipsi, the Black Channel) * Parallels to George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and the term Orwellian to describe the Stasi’s level of surveillance.  The significance of Julia who keeps coming into Anna’s apartment and removing things. Like the Communists when they took over Germany, but also symptomatic of her inability to settle. Much like Miriam who needs to live in a space which is open. * An exploration of how humanity can treat each other in inhumane ways. Questioning how this was possible after the atrocities of the Nazis. * A need to link passages to other stories in the text * “I don’t want to be German any more” * Anna’s clear disapproval of Ostalgie * Her use of various German stereotypes, possibly even her liking of theSticklebrick nature of the language.