At first we are introduced to a boy, Lambert Stamp, who is at school. He is going to hear a former prisoner of war telling her terrifying experiences from the concentration camp Auschwitz. During the lecture he begins to laugh and he is not able to stop again. It results in a meeting with the headmaster who requires him to visit the blind and old Mrs Heller. Next day Lambert visits Mrs Heller but he never finds the time to apologize because she does all the talking. Instead he talks to Mrs Heller's house help.
One year earlier his mother had come home in a terrible condition; she had experienced an accident on her way back from work. She was silent and hurried to bed. The next day his mother told him her version of the accident and she was very sad. Nine months later she has died, because she had eaten too many sleeping tablets.
During the text there is a parallel story about a couple. The man (Lambert) has hit his wife Liz because he found out that she was having an affair. He cannot understand why she has done so and he desperately tries to find out. At last we are given the picture of Liz and Lambert getting along.
Lambert's dad chooses the wrong solution, he is afraid of the truth. Lambert is a child and he easily adopts his father's attitude. His mother eats sleeping tablets and it is her way of oppressing the fire. She is clearly affected by them, because we are told that she sleeps all the time. The day after the accident she tells Lambert about it. Then she gets under the influence of sleeping tablets and one day she takes an overdose and it is hers final. A clear proof of the danger oppressing can result in. I think it was her idea to die from the pills and not a mistake as Lambert's father says. He only comes up with that to make Lambert forget the episode. If he was told the truth, he would realize that his father had given him a wrong image of reality because she actually died from depressions. When he visits Mrs Heller, he gets to see things in a different perspective. She is the opposite of the father and in addition to that we can conclude that she makes the correct choices because the father makes the incorrect choices. She is still alive and that is also a proof of her righteousness because even though she is battered, she keeps her spirit high.
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