54 pages • 1 hour read
Hans Peter RichterFriedrich
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1961A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Literary Devices
Historical Fiction (Genre)
Historical fiction is a literary genre that takes place in the past and is based on true facts, although the characters and other aspects of the story are fictional. A novel about Napoleon Bonaparte, for example, would be a work of historical fiction if the author attributes words or actions to Napoleon that are not verifiable with historic documents.
Friedrich is a work of historical fiction because the characters (e.g., the narrator and Friedrich) are fictional, but the world that surrounds them is based on historical events: Hitler’s rise to power, antisemitism in Nazi Germany, Kristallnacht, etc.
Dramatic Irony
Dramatic irony is a subcategory of irony. It works to achieve a detached sense of “superiority” in the reader because they possess more knowledge about the character’s situation than the character does, which allows them to foresee an outcome contrary to the character’s expectations or hopes.
Friedrich is full of dramatic irony because the reader, with knowledge of the historical events leading up to World War II, remains several steps ahead of the characters. For example, in Chapter 7, the reader knows that the seemingly innocuous youth with the sign telling everyone to boycott Jewish businesses is far more threatening than the characters in the scene realize and that the situation for the Jews will only get much, much worse.
Allegory
An allegory is a story or image that carries with it a deeper meaning beyond its superficial one. In written narrative, an allegory typically parallels a part of the main narrative. In Friedrich, the story the rabbi tells the narrator in Chapter 26: “Stars,” is allegorical to the Jewish situation and specifically to the Schneiders’ and Friedrich’s situation in the novel. The story is titled Solomon, which, as Friedrich explains to the narrator, is his Hebrew name. Thus, the reader is already instructed to understand the story of Solomon in the rabbi’s story as a parallel to Friedrich’s story of escape. The story also foreshadows the events in Chapter 28 when a mob (the police) comes to take away Herr Schneider and the rabbi. The reader can only assume that both men will be sent to a concentration camp and will not survive the war. The allegorical story signifies as much since both parents die and Frau Schneider has already been killed by a mob.
