Surviving Trauma in The Assault Anonymous 11th Grade

Trauma survivors often cope by investing their entire energy into silencing and suppressing the harrowing events of the past. One such survivor is Anton Steenwijk, the protagonist of Harry Mulisch’s 1982 novel, The Assault. Especially in the first chapter after the “incident”, set during the liberation of Amsterdam, Mulisch portrays Anton’s experiences and condition as a trauma survivor. By introducing one of the main conflicts in the novel, furthering the characterization of Anton, and through the use of symbolism, Mulisch illustrates how despite one’s best attempts of suppressing the past, it is embedded in one’s subconscious and cannot be escaped.

One of the main conflicts in Mulisch’s novel, is an internal conflict between Anton’s desire to move on with his life and his inability to face his past to achieve closure. This directly relates to the notion that one cannot escape their past unless they are willing to confront it. This chapter is crucial in introducing this conflict since it describes Anton’s development over the years following the “incident”, in which his family was murdered, his house burned, and everything he knew destroyed. Although Anton believes that the war “was never really a part of him or ever would be”...