“Violence and cruelty were just a stupid person's way of making himself felt because it was easier to use your hands to strike a blow than to use your brain to find a logical and just solution to a problem.”
As a Jewish child raised up in a concentration camp during the Holocaust, all that David knows is brutality, death, and suffering. The tyrannical regime that runs the camps during the Russian Revolution is referred to as ‘them’; therefore, this period saw regimes that used violence to attain control. David as a victim and witness to this violence sees the absurdity of this thought especially after he leaves the camp and sees that people could be decent human beings. Thus, the statement is an observation of this trait that is adopted before reasonable approaches are considered to solve an issue.
“David thought living in a house was very difficult. It was not the house itself--that was lovely to be in - but the people. What was so difficult about them was that they constantly seemed to expect him to say and do things he would never have thought of, and what appeared sensible and natural to him seemed to surprise them...”
The protagonist is a stranger to the ways of a regular society being that he grew up without a family moreover in a concentration camp. David finds it hard to relate to individuals who have led a normal life because he has had to deal with complex and existential issues at a young age. He has been exposed to violence and death, therefore, he has had to develop quicker and is even way more cynical that a typical young boy. Thus, the statement shows how he has a hard time finding the right way to behave or speak in this new setting. In that, his reflexive way of talking or conducting himself is rather out of the norm considering he lacks any cultural literacy yet.
“Before he had come to the town he had known about nothing but death: here he had learnt to live, to decide things for himself…he had learnt the sound of laughter that was free from cruelty; he had learnt the meaning of beauty”
Now in the world, David observes how people interact or engage with each other and their environment in a manner he had never seen before. His journey through Europe gives him a gist of what real life is all about devoid of the violence and death that he was accustomed to. He learns that human beings can be compassionate, loving and generally joyful beings since he never had a chance to truly see it in the camp. The assertion expresses his growth into becoming a culturally literate individual who gets to know the truer side of humanity.
