57 pages • 1 hour read

After

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2011

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-8

Chapters 9-14

Chapters 15-21

Chapters 22-30

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Symbols & Motifs

“After”

It is important to note that Gleitzman begins each chapter of the novel with the word “After,” deliberately echoing the title itself. This installment of the series also follows the same titular patterns that Gleitzman utilizes in previous novels, for each book is tersely labeled with an enigmatic time reference. The full range of novels in the series is as follows: Once, Then, Now, After, Soon, Maybe, and Always. Using a time reference to title each novel creates a strict yet open-ended chronology that gradually gains a growing sense of hope as the titles progress. In this novel, the word “after” symbolizes the aftermath of the Holocaust and the impact it has on the lives of the characters, highlighting the reality that although the war is drawing to a close, people will never be the same as they were before the conflict. Now, after the onslaught of the traumatic war itself, they still face the painful and difficult process of rebuilding and healing after the life-changing experiences of war and genocide.

That being said, the word “After” also holds positive connotations, for Felix Salinger has survived the war and will live to build his own version of what happens “after.” Therefore, “After” also suggests a sense of hope and the possibility of a better future, as Felix and other survivors strive to make sense of the devastating events and find a way to move forward. At the end of the novel, Felix reflects, “We have work to do. Things need mending” (209). Here, Felix considers the reconstruction that he and his society must undertake, and he also looks beyond the events of the novel and to the next installment of the series, Soon.

Forming Trust Groups

A motif that recurs throughout After is Felix’s need to build relationships of trust with various groups and individuals as a part of his effort simply to survive. While Felix demonstrates that he can recede into his creative mind and endure isolation and deprivation, a young person like Felix cannot survive alone during wartime. The narrative begins when Nazis torch the farm where Felix has been hiding, disrupting his existing trust group—himself, Gabriek Borowski, and their horse Dom.

Needing to find medical help for Gabriek and having no other alternative, Felix walks into the forest until he encounters the partisans, a group he must join. Overcoming the initial reluctance of most of the resistance fighters, Felix shows himself to be an adept medical assistant, forming close bonds with Dr. Zajak. His relationship with Yuli opens him to a wealth of new abilities and understandings. When the partisan camp is overrun by the Nazis, Felix once again must find a trust group, this time taking the primary leadership role when he bonds with six war orphans and stays true to his own ethics by caring for them all, despite their disparate political affiliations. Finally, in the concentration camp where he finds his mother, Felix bonds both with the Russian medical team and the prisoners who are too sick to leave the camp and have no homes to which they might return.

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One commonality shared by each of these trust groups is that they each reject Felix at the outset, in one way or another, and it is only by extending a measure of trust himself that Felix is able to earn it from others. The partisans assume they might have to kill him to protect their location. The Jewish children are fearful that he is only pretending to be a Jew. The German children threaten to kill him because they believe he is a partisan, then learn he is Jewish. The medical staff at the concentration camp only allows him to work with other ailing prisoners when he demonstrates his ability to endure the deaths of those for whom he cares. Over the course of the narrative, Felix not only learns to adapt to the needs of each group and becomes a trusted member but ultimately takes on leadership roles that belie his youth.

Unworthy Allies

Felix connects with several people in the narrative who prove to be trustworthy, compassionate individuals of real integrity: Gabriek, Yuli, Dr. Zajak, and the Russian doctor who empowers him to work with camp survivors. Gleitzman makes it clear, however, that many of the people Felix must rely upon are unworthy, even to the point of being dangerous.

The most persistently unworthy ally is Szulk, the Polish partisan fighter who hates Jews almost as much as the Nazis do. At the outset, he is the one who first voices the desire to kill Felix in the early chapters, and in the final pages, he becomes the final threat against Felix’s life as he attempts to follow through with his intention to kill the boy, only for Felix to thwart him in the only act of violence he commits during the course of the novel. While Szulk is the most extreme version of a dangerous ally that Felix must face, others exhibit more moderate types of danger. For example, the leader of the partisans, Pavel, openly tells Felix that his survival depends on strictly following orders—orders that Felix is intent on defying. In the later scenes of the novel, Felix has clearly learned to adapt to the close proximity of such threats, for when the two Hitler Youth boys whom Felix rescues threaten him with a rifle, he remains perfectly calm and threatens them in turn with a brutal, painful death. Finally, while traveling from Poland to Germany with Russian medical caregivers, Felix recognizes that these so-called “friendly” groups are also war criminals who commit atrocities in his presence. Thus, Gleitzman implies that surviving as a civilian in wartime requires interacting with unseemly individuals who purport to be “on your side” of the conflict.