Humane Voice
Creating Humanity in Literature
An Examination of the Jewish Experience During World War II
By Joanne Lewis
I. Introduction
“Easy reading is damn hard writing.” Nathaniel Hawthorne
In addition to the authorial and narrative voices in literature, there is a third voice that authors can utilize to provide readers with the most profound experience possible. That is the humane voice. Use of humane voice in literature best recreates the human experience.
In this essay, I define humane voice as the convergence of voice and place, demonstrate its use, offer practical ways to apply humane voice to writing, explain why authors should use it, and provide humane voice charts.
Herein, humane voice is brought to the forefront for authors to add to their craft toolboxes and for them to be conscious of its significant role in the telling of their stories, regardless of the genre.
II. Voice and Place
a. Voice
The question of voice in literature has many dimensions—psychological as well as narratological—but the most fundamental issue, according to Henrik Skov Nielson, is whether it makes sense to speak of a voice in written literature since voice must be phonetic and make a sound (134). The word voice derived from the Latin words vox and voc and was first known to have been used in the fourteenth century. That’s over six hundred years of voice being associated with sound. Nonetheless, academics, authors, reviewers, and sophisticated readers remark on the voice of a novel as if the words of the pages speak to them.
There are many types of voices in literature however the two major categories are the authorial voice and the narrative voice, with subsections thereunder. These types of voice are briefly discussed below as this essay does not seek to evaluate these voice types. Rather, presented herein is an argument for making humane voice the primary voice to be used in order to achieve depth and profoundness in writing.
The authorial voice is the voice of the author. Also known as the writer’s style, this voice creates the mood of a book. Authorial voices include the ironist, as in Mark Twain, and the simple, direct style of Ernest Hemingway.
The authorial voice uniquely belongs to the author and is often the reason people follow a writer. His voice becomes familiar and safe, as if listening to a trusted relative or professor. The voice of an author is imparted through many devices including vocabulary and word choice, sentence construction, use of interior monologue, structure, and paragraph and chapter lengths. A reader might not be able to identify why she is attracted to a single author other than to state, ‘I like Stephen King because I enjoy horror novels’, or ‘”Great Gatsby” was my favorite novel in high school so I am an F. Scott Fitzgerald fan’. However, on a psychological level, there is often more to a reader’s kinship with an author’s style than appears on the surface.
The same can be said for the narrative voice. The narrative voice is the voice of the characters as created by the author. This voice guides the reader in how the world between the pages is to be viewed. Types of narrative voices include first, second, third and omniscient points of view, streams of consciousness, epistolary and unreliable. A well-written first person novel flows like good conversation. Generations of readers have been engaged by Holden Caulfield’s first person account in J.D. Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye”, and by Ponyboy Curtis’s voice in S.E. Hinton’s “The Outsiders”.
Humane voice is not meant to replace authorial or narrative voices in a novel, nor be available as a third option, nor is it meant to be applied as an additional craft tool. Rather, humane voice is the greatest part of the whole. To give a simple analogy as expounded further herein, authors’ craft decisions (authorial and narrative voices, plotting devices, use of description, etc.) are slices of a pie. If assembled correctly, humane voice is the entire pie.
b. Place
Place, in literature, is generally viewed as the setting that situates the reader
in the location of the novel, and puts the reader where the author wants her to be. This, in turn, gives the reader a sense of history and adds dimension to the characters’ experiences.
William Zinsser states, “every human event happens somewhere, and the reader wants to know what that ‘somewhere’ is like” (88). True enough, but too simple. There are deeper, more pointed definitions of place.
In Philip Hensher’s article, “The Importance of Place in Fiction” he states,
“…a narrative can’t be just about a spirit of place; that is the subject for the lyric poem. A novel has to place the psychologies of individuals in a delicate relationship with the world that formed them…the spirit of place in a novel is not just an inert backdrop or a straightforward illustrator of emotion; it is part of the humanity at the centre of the endeavor…”
Hensher further pronounces, “…it is too easy…to find correlations between geography and national character (in a novel) …the argumentative Bengali and the constantly shifting grounds he lives on. It’s too simple an explanation.” But, he writes, “Those Bengali rivers have their own dignity…There’s a high degree of human investment in the flow of water…”
In the opening graph of Milford A. Jeremiah’s essay, “The Use of Place in Writing and Literature,” Mr. Jeremiah states:
Place, in its literary sense, can be defined in several ways. For one thing we may define place as the physical aspect of the environment at hand. In another sense, we may define place as the environment removed from the speaker or writer. In some instances, place is the term used to describe the setting in which issues of writing and other language-related skills are housed. In the literary world, place is usually combined with time and events to establish what is known as the social setting or the social context of a literary work.” (emphasis added) (23)
As examples, Bernard Malamud’s “The Assistant” is set in a working-class neighborhood in Brooklyn during the 1950s, and Henry James’s “Washington Square” is located in lower Manhattan in the 1840s. Both settings and the historical contexts humanize the stories of Morris Bober, a down-on-his-luck Jewish fellow who cannot catch a financial break, and Catherine Sloper, who wishes to wed a man her domineering father disapproves of.
III. What is Humane Voice?
William Cane, in his book “Write Like the Masters”, defines voice in fiction and nonfiction as “…the feeling and tone of writing, a certain flavor determined by word choice and phrasing that gives a text dimension and makes it distinctly human.” (182)
Human investment from readers in an author’s work is the goal of every writer. The author strives to create a book that a reader cannot put down, whether it’s a thrilling page turner, an educational and historical tome, or a graphic novel. Success is achieved using craft devices that the author consciously or unconsciously chooses. These devices include character arcs, the use of description and dialogue, the overall structure, and the variations of sentence length. Authorial and narrative voices are others.
This essay posits that use of humane voice creates a bond between the book and the reader that lasts beyond the final word and is a necessity of any book to endure.
a. Defining Humane Voice
Voice, robbing from Mr. Cane’s definition, is the tone of a writing that makes it feel human.
Place, influenced by Mr. Jeremiah, is the time period, location, social environment and historical context of a writing.
Therefore, humane voice is defined as the tone of a writing that makes it feel human as told through the time period, location, social environment and historical context of a writing.
IV. Why Apply Humane Voice to Writing?
A meaningful read is an unforgettable one. Writers want readers to be enthralled by their words, enmeshed in their characters' lives, and lured into the worlds they have created whether seedy, sublime or luscious. Readers want this too.
For readers to have a profound experience means the author has created a deep sense of caring in the world he’s created, and connects readers with authors. Readers viscerally feel what is happening on each page. A racing heart thumps during a tense car chase. There is a longing to be held by the protagonist even though he is fictional. Fingers grip the e-reader during a creepy monologue. This profound experience for the reader makes the book unforgettable and is achieved through humane voice.
Using humane voice also introduces readers to new types of people, places, customs, methods, sciences, tactics, and ideas. This voice is filled with history and civics lessons. While readers are educated, they also laugh, cry, feel anger, and find joy. Regardless of the emotion that is evoked and the lessons that are learned, readers become invested and care. Creating a world and characters that readers care about, that they want to meld into, that entertains and educates, and that they continue to think about are results of humane voice.
In addition to the impact on the reader, using humane voice in writing heightens the author's experience while writing the book, and after. Just like the reader caring about the world between the pages and learning from that world, the author must care and continue to learn herself to have a vital writing experience. Creating a world using humane voice makes the author feel, just like the reader. As she writes that chase scene, her heart pounds. She falls in love with her characters, perhaps even fantasizes or fears them, and finds herself checking to make sure the front door is locked while writing a suspenseful scene. Achieving humane voice in writing is challenging, and fun. Having fun is something many writers forget needs to be part of the process.
Finally, writers dedicate hundreds, indeed thousands, of hours to the act of writing, to thinking about writing, and to learning the craft. It’s imperative for the writing process to be self-fulfilling. Implementing humane voice achieves this.
V. How Apply Humane Voice to Writing?
To support my thesis that an author’s use of humane voice best recreates the human experience, I have chosen to explore three books of different genres that utilize humane voice. They are “All the Light We Cannot See” by Anthony Doerr, “In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin” by Erik Larson , and “The Complete Maus” by Art Spiegelman.
Light is a novel that shares the story of two children caught on opposite sides of World War II. Garden is nonfiction and is the account of Ambassador William E. Dodd and his daughter’s experiences in Berlin in 1933 during the rise of Hitler. Maus is a graphic novel in which Nazis are depicted as cats and Jews as mice. Light won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2015, as did Maus (1992), which was the first graphic novel to win the honor. Garden made many best book lists in 2011.
a. Choosing Books that Explore the Jewish Experience During WWII to
Demonstrate Humane Voice
Much has been written about the Jewish experience during WWII in the forms of journalistic reports, scholarly articles and non-fiction books, in works of fiction to include historical novels and dystopian works, and in the claims of Holocaust fantasists and deniers. Questioning if there is too much written about the Holocaust is a well-explored topic.
To the deniers and anti-Semites, and to the generations of Germans removed from WWII (it is against the law in Germany to make the Nazi salute), the responses are ‘enough already’ about the Holocaust. The deniers yell the Holocaust never occurred and any mention of it as a true event is a conspiracy. Anti-Semites wish to stifle the Jews, and Germans removed generationally from the Holocaust desire no longer to be blamed for the acts of their ancestors.
To those who hope the lessons of the Holocaust are never overlooked, and for people who see value in never forgetting as homage to the past and so history never repeats, the answer to the question is that there is never enough education about that terrible time.
Literature has taken on the losses and struggles, the landscapes, and the history of the Holocaust repeatedly and with much success. Holocaust historian Saul Friedlander won the Pulitzer in 2008 for his non-fiction book, "The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews 1939-1945." Elie Wiesel's "Night" won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. "Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl", Ms. Frank's journal written from 1942 until 1944, is an undeniable classic.
How literature addresses the Jewish experience during WWII is the perfect way to demonstrate the use of humane voice as it was a decidedly human experience that remains a rich part of the past and the present. While the three books I have chosen to examine utilize different craft techniques to depict this experience they all use humane voice, a significant choice by the authors that no doubt led to their timeless works.
As a reminder, and to transition into the next section of this essay, the definitions used herein are:
Voice is the tone of a writing that makes it feel human.
Place is the time period, location, social environment and historical context of a writing.
Humane voice is defined as the tone of a writing that makes it feel human as told through the time period, location, social environment and historical context of a writing.
Let’s continue with a synopsis of the three books.
i. All the Light We Cannot See
Synopsis
Marie-Laure is a French girl who goes blind due to cataracts. Werner Pfennig is a German orphan who is a whiz in science and math. Light begins on the verge of WWII and covers Marie-Laure and Werner’s lives before and during the war, as well as Marie-Laure’s life post-war.
Marie-Laure lives in Paris with her father who is a locksmith at the Museum of Natural History. He helps Marie-Laure cope with her blindness by exposing her to smells and touches, by teaching her to trust her instincts, by buying her Jules Verne’s novel “Around the World in Eighty Days” in braille, and by building her a wooden replica of their neighborhood to study so she can learn to navigate the streets.
A magical blue diamond called the Sea of Flames is part of the collection at the Museum of Natural History. According to legend, the Sea of Flames may hurt or protect those who hold it in her possession. When Marie-Laure and her father must flee Paris, her father carries the Sea of Flames with him.
Marie-Laure and her father go to Saint-Malo where Marie-Laure’s great uncle Etienne and his housekeeper Madame Manec reside. In Saint-Malo, her father builds her a wooden model of Saint-Malo and hides the blue diamond inside the replica of Etienne’s home. Marie-Laure’s father is summoned back to the museum in Paris and promises his daughter he will return.
Later, with Madame Manec dead and Etienne missing, Marie-Laure is alone in her great uncle’s home. Colonel von Rumpel, an ailing Nazi soldier willing to kill to recover the Sea of Flames, enters the home and searches for the blue diamond. Marie-Laure hides in the attic and reads from Jules Verne’s novel over Etienne’s radio to ease her fears.
Along with his sister Jutta, Werner grows up in an orphanage in the countryside of Germany. Werner finds a radio and he and his sister spend many nights curled around the transistor, comforted by listening to an unknown man read stories from an unknown location. Werner dreams of becoming a scientist but at fifteen years old will be required to work in the local coal mine. To avoid this fate, he accepts enrollment at a Nazi school. At the school, he gains notoriety and favoritism for his ability to repair radios. He meets Volkheimer, a giant of a boy who becomes Werner’s friend.
Werner is thrust into the war, fixes radios, follows signals, and identifies targets for the Nazis to bomb. When encrypted and enemy messages are discovered from a radio in Saint-Malo, Werner, Volkheimer, and their small troop travel to Saint-Malo to find the perpetrator. They arrive on the eve of the town being bombed.
Over the radio, Werner hears the same man he and his sister used to listen to when they were in the orphanage. He doesn’t wish for whomever has the radio to be harmed. Then, he hears Marie-Laure reading from Jules Verne’s novel, as well as her plea when she says, “he’s here” referring to Colonel von Rumpel who wants to harm her.
Werner rushes to Etienne’s home, and kills von Rumpel who is trying to harm Marie-Laure. Werner helps her escape. They take the wooden model of Etienne’s home in Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s father had hidden the blue diamond, and hides the house and the diamond in an ocean grotto.
Werner and Marie-Laure separate to ensure better success of survival. Marie-Laure safely reunites with her great uncle, Etienne.
The allies capture Werner. While imprisoned, Werner becomes ill and delirious and wanders into a field. He trips a mine and is killed by the explosion.
Years later, Volkheimer is given Werner’s belongings, which include the wooden model of Etienne’s home in Saint-Malo. Volkheimer brings them to Jutta. Jutta travels to Paris to meet Marie-Laure and gives her the wooden model of Etienne’s home, empty of the diamond. Marie-Laure wonders what Werner did with the Sea of Flames. The narrator tells the reader that Werner had thrown it in the grotto, but Marie-Laure has no way of knowing this. She is left with the memory of that difficult time, and of the boy who had saved her life.
ii. In the Garden of Beasts
Synopsis
William E. Dodd was a history professor at the University of Chicago in 1933 and had been so for decades. He was bored and unmotivated in this position and was considering retirement when he learned President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was considering him to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Germany. Such a position would require Dodd and his family to relocate to Berlin. When FDR called Dodd and offered him the job, he gave him two hours to respond. Dodd discussed the offer with his wife and decided to accept the position. Soon thereafter, Dodd, his wife, his twenty-four-year old daughter Martha and his twenty-eight-year-old son William, Jr. boarded an ocean liner for Europe.
What Dodd did not know when he accepted this position was that FDR had offered the Ambassadorship to Germany to many others who had refused. With the ascension of Hitler to power and the obvious signs of trouble brewing in Germany, no diplomat or politician wanted to tackle this responsibility.
A humble man, Dodd shunned the typical showy lifestyle of the diplomat and elected to transport his old car to Berlin instead of being driven around by limousine, refused a large household staff and frowned at the expensive parties he was expected to throw and attend. His daughter, Martha, on the other hand, enjoyed getting to know the social elite of Berlin, and enjoyed their food, their music, and their parties.
Initially, Ambassador Dodd found Berlin to be an intriguing city. The people were friendly and the Dodd family was welcomed warmly. Then, Dodd began to hear rumors of Hitler's rise and of increasing violence against Jews, which he initially dismissed.
As time went on, Dodd began to see that Hitler was a real and growing danger. Dodd sent reports back to the U.S. warning of what was happening in Berlin. However FDR and his administration refused to publicly denounce Hitler and the Nazi party. There were many pressures upon FDR to remain quiet about the rise of the Third Reich, including diplomatic and financial concerns, fear that American Jews in Germany would be harmed, and because the majority of Americans didn't want to get back into war, especially another one in Europe.
Dodd's frustration with Hitler and the Nazi party intensified. In America, Dodd became a laughing stock having earned the nickname Ambassador Dud in some political circles. Martha blushed when Hitler kissed her on the cheek, had many lovers while in Germany, and was even accused of being a Russian spy. For her, being in Berlin was one adventure after another. For Ambassador Dodd, who hoped his parlay into diplomacy would make a positive impact on the world, his tenure in Berlin was a disappointment. Hitler, although he pretended otherwise, couldn't stand the Dodds and called the Ambassador an imbecile.
Dodd stayed in Berlin as long as he could, and as long as his family was safe. Upon his return to the U.S. in 1937, he told the world what was really happening with Hitler and the Third Reich. While few believed him at first, it wouldn't be long until the entire world knew he was right.
iii. The Complete Maus
Synopsis
After a childhood spent feeling criticized by his father, Artie Spiegelman, an American cartoonist, is estranged but not out-of-touch from his father, Valdek. In 1978, Artie visits his father in Rego Park, New York. Valdek is sick and unhappy. He is married to his second wife, Mala, whom he is displeased with, and he still mourns for Anja, his first wife and Artie's mother, who had committed suicide ten years earlier.
Artie desires to write a comic book about his father who is from Poland and a Holocaust survivor. Valdek always refused to talk about WWII but slowly he begins to tell Artie about his life during that time. Artie interviews his father over two years.
Artie turns his father's story into a comic strip whereby the Nazis are depicted as cats and the Jews as mice.
In prewar Poland, Valdek meets Anja and they marry. They live happily in Sosnowiec with their families. Anja's father is very wealthy and everyone lives well. The war begins in 1939 and Valdek is called to the Soviet 1st Ukraine Front line, where he is reluctant to fight but ultimately kills a German soldier. Valdek is captured by the Germans and sent to a POW camp. He escapes after several months and returns to Sosnowiec and his family, which now includes a young son named Richieu.
After his return to Sosnowiec, Valdek notices increased violence against Jews, and the diminishment of the rights of Jews to conduct business and own shops. Soon Jews are forced to give up their homes to Polish non-Jews and to live in a ghetto.
Conversations begin of a place called Auschwitz where atrocities occur. However, nobody in the ghetto wants to believe the stories are true. It does not take long before they cannot deny the existence of death camps and gas chambers.
To protect Richieu, Vladek and Anja send him to live with Tosha, Anja's sister, in another ghetto where they feel he will be safer. However, all of the members of that ghetto are murdered by the Nazis or sent to Auschwitz. However, when Tosha learns of what is happening, she feeds poison to Richieu and his cousins, and takes it herself, refusing to die in a death camp.
Eventually, the ghetto where Valdek, Anja and the remaining members of their families are trapped is scheduled to be liquidated by the Nazis. They manage to evade capture for a while but are caught. Vladek is sent to Auschwitz; Anja goes to Birkenau.
Both manage to survive the war and are reunited in Sosnowiec. They learn all of the members of their families have been murdered by the Nazis. Artie is born in 1948. They immigrate to the United States in the 1950s. Twenty years later, Anja commits suicide without leaving a note.
The final section of Maus begins with Vladek’s death, and then continues to tell of his experiences during the Holocaust, and of Artie trying to understand his relationship with his father. At the end, Artie and Vladek's relationship had deepened and father and son developed a compassion and respect for the other.
b. Humane Voice: How To
There exist many formulas on how to write books. There is the three-act structure, which is the basic structure of set-up, rising action and resolution. The Hero’s Journey (sic) by Joseph Campbell is a seventeen-step frame of the hero’s journey from inability to overcome challenges, to gaining the tools, to saving the day. There are also rules for character driven and plot driven stories. However, humane voice is not about structure, plotting or character development. It is a method of juxtapositions that if it were a formula would look like this:
time period + location + social environment + historical context = a book’s humanity
The below pie chart represents what an author needs to consider when he is creating humane voice, and how much attention to give to each element.
In a three-hundred page book, the above pie chart does not represent that the social environment should account for 50% or 150 pages of the book, the historical content should account for 30% or 90 pages of the book, and the locations and time periods should occupy 30 pages each. Rather, this pie chart is a loose guide for the author to consider how much weight is to be given to each factor of humane voice.
Like an apple pie straight out of the oven, humane voice stands as a whole. After the pie cools, it is cut into slices. The elements of humane voice—the who, what, why, where, when and how of a writing—are the slices.
Time periods and locations should be revealed early and do not need to be repeated unless there is a shift in time or setting. Time and location grounds the reader as to the where and when.
Historical context is important for the reader to understand the era, to establish background and to understand some reasons for characters’ choices. Historical context explains the why.
Social environment–which is intertwined with the culture of the world–is paramount to every story and is revealed through plot. This is the who, the what and the how.
VI. Humane Voice Applied
Light begins in 1934 when anti-Semitism is prevalent in Europe. Hitler and the Nazi party are gaining power. The novel continues through Germany's invasion of France on May 10, 1940 and ends, except for a final scene sixty years later, when Germany surrenders on May 7, 1945. The Jewish experience is told from the perspectives of a young blind French Jewish girl who works for the Jewish Resistance, and a non-Jewish German boy who reluctantly fights for the Third Reich.
In Garden, the true account of Ambassador Dodd and his family's four-year stay in Berlin from 1933 until 1937, like Light, takes place while the Nazis are the proverbial snowballs rolling down mountains, gaining speed and becoming uncontrollable and deadly. Mr. Larson relates the Jewish experience during WWII not only through the eyes of the gentile ambassador and his twenty-four-year-old daughter but also from their differing generations and personalities. Ambassador Dodd is a sixty-four-year-old refined history professor who is suspicious of Hitler and who comes to view Berlin as a tinder box. Martha, on the other hand, is young and enthralled by the handsome Germans and Russians she meets, and by the invitations she receives to their social events. To Martha, Berlin is an exciting and vibrant city of opportunity.
Maus tells of the Jewish experience during WWII through the parallel stories of Artie Spiegelman, a cartoonist, and of Vladek, his father. Over a two-year period, Vladek tells his son about his life in Poland during WWII, including fighting for the Polish army, escaping a POW camp, living in a ghetto, and being sent to Auschwitz. Artie interprets his father's experience into a graphic novel, a unique approach to the Jewish experience during WWII.
Mr. Doerr, Mr. Larson and Mr. Spiegelman expertly intertwine time periods, locations, social environment, and historical context to create humane voices that bring humanity and heart to their stories.
a. Humane Voice Charts
The following Humane Voice Charts break down the books I have examined and demonstrate the authors’ interlineation of the elements (the slices of the pie) necessary to create humane voice:
b. Applying Humane Voice to a Non-Historical Novel
The three books I have examined that demonstrate humane voice are historical in nature. But what of fiction books that are not historical? How is humane voice applied?
"Still Alice" by Lisa Genova, is not a historical novel. It is the story of Dr. Alice Howland, a fifty-year-old Harvard cognitive psychology professor who is losing her memory. She is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's disease. "Still Alice" is a heart wrenching story of a young woman at the top of her intellectual game who is stricken with a disease that takes away her most reliable asset, her mind. The initially self-published novel sold millions of copies and was made into a successful movie. The accomplishments of this novel can be traced to Ms. Genova’s use of humane voice in the telling of Alice’s story.
Humane Voice Chart of “Still Alice”:
Unless a book begins on the day the universe is created, every story has history. The historical context does not have to be real, it could be imagined. For example, using the popular "Game of Thrones" series, or the Harry Potter books, the historical context would be of the author's creation and can still be tracked in a humane voice chart.
c. Blank Humane Voice Chart
Below is a blank Humane Voice Chart for authors to use:
XII. Conclusion: Humane Voice Best Recreates the Human Experience
“The voice of beauty speaks softly; it creeps only into the most fully awakened souls.”
–Friedrich Nietzsche
Use of humane voice best recreates the human experience in literature. As mentioned, academics, authors, reviewers, and sophisticated readers remark on the voice of a writing as if the words on the pages talk. A book that “speaks” has a profound effect on its readers and on the author, and guides them on a fully realized journey to the core of humanity. The humane voice is the greatest opportunity for an enduring work to be created.