Parallel Journeys Literary Elements

Biographical novel. Historical novel.

Germany, America, and Holland during the 20th century, including the World War I and World War II years.

The novel is told from Alfons’ and Helen Waterford’s points of view.

Sympathetic, fearful, subjugation, discriminatory, and suffering.

Hellen is the protagonist, whereas Alfons Heck and other proponents of Nazism, such as Hitler, are the antagonists.

Nazis' oppression and separation of Jewish families, such as that of the Siegfrieds', which is attributed to Hitler’s ideology of ‘Master race.’ The conflict pits the Jewish against the non-Jewish (Aryan) individuals.

Hellen's ultimate reunion with her daughter Doris.

Alfons Heck’s grandfather foreshadows the outcome of Hitler’s craziness: “You mark my words…They’re going to hand this country over to that crazy Austrian.” The foreshadow comes true when Hitler embarks on eradicating the Jews so that the Master race can dominate the world.

The Nazis understate the significance and humaneness of the individuals who are deemed 'low-class citizens": " But if you were a young gypsy, a communist, or a Jehovah's Witness, or if you were handicapped in any way, your future was not promising." The individuals are grouped in the low class due to their appearance, religion, and ideologies.

Biblical allusions such as “ Jews were accused of killing Christ.”

World War II, the Holocaust (and its terrors), Nazism in Germany, and World War I are pertinent historical allusions in the novel.

Looks are used in determining racial grouping: " Although Alfons didn't have blond hair and blue eyes-the Nordic Germanic look that Hitler liked most-still he was a German through and through." Looks are used in distinguishing the Nordics from the non-Nordics.

In the aftermath of World War I, enmity emerges between Germans and other nations, and the hostility spills down to individuals.

Alfons Heck’s description of his teacher is paradoxical: “Herr Becker… was both a good Catholic and a good Nazi. He never tried to hide his belief that Jews were different.” The paradoxical descriptions underscore how entrenched Nazism was in Germany to the extent that racism towards the Jews was practiced even by Christians.

The paradox of Martin Luther's philosophy of Protestantism: "Martin Luther, the sixteenth-century German who started the Protestant religion, called Jews 'the Christina's most vicious enemy. Luther urged his followers to destroy Jewish homes and synagogues." Martin Luther endorses discrimination which is discouraged in the Bible.

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Volksschule denotes elementary school. "Master race" denotes the Aryan families that were non-Jewish. ‘Untermenschen’ denotes the individuals who belong in the low class and are not part of Hitler's concept of the master race.

Pictures of Adolf Hitler are a personification of Nazism and anti-Semitism: “A picture of Adolf Hitler hung in every classroom in the country. Boys and Girls by the millions were joining the Hitlerjugend.”