The Address: Synopsis and Key Points

Words You Should Know Before Reading The Chapter

 

The Author
Marga Minco is the pen name of Sara Menco. In 1942, her parents were forced to move into the city's Jewish Quarter. The parents, her brother and sister were all deported and Marga/Sara managed to survive the war in hiding. Thus, her stories often revolve around the existential problems often faced by survivors.

The Background

World War II ran its course from 1939 - 1945. Most of the nations of the world divided themselves into two groups: the Allies and the Axis. The Allies initially comprised of France, Poland and UK but soon became the group led by "the big three" - USA, the British Commonwealth, the Soviet Union. Other allies were China, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and other third world nations. The axis were formed of Germany, Italy, Japan and the areas they presided over (Parts of Europe, Africa, East and South East Asia and islands of the Pacific). The Allies eventually won but in the interim, about 50-70 million lives were lost.

The most devastating aspects of this war were the Holocaust and the Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Holocaust was the genocide of about six million European Jews under the Nazi reign of Adolf Hitler. The holocaust began with laws being established to remove Jews from civil society. They were sent to concentration camps and used as labour or for medical experiments unto death. Often mass shootouts took lives. Some were sent to extermination camps by freight train to be killed in the now infamous gas chambers. 

Although it is proven that Hitler was an illegitimate child, there is only speculation to a Jewish birth father. Scholars still debate whether Hitler's antisemitism (hatred for the Jews) was due to his abandonment issues or was a product of the loss of Germany in World War I due to the civilian Jewish leaders and Marxists within Germany. In any case, having lived in antisemitic areas in his youth and served in the German army, Hitler grew up hating Jews and eventually devised "the final solution to the Jewish problem".

Our story begins after the Holocaust when our narrator, a Jewish survivor who had lost her entire family, had returned to find her mother's things at 46, Marconi Street.

The Synopsis and key points

The narrator arrives at 46, Marconi Street, a house owned by a certain Ms. Dorling. The door is opened a mere inch by a woman who seems not to know the narrator and treats her with cool incivility. However, during the course of the interaction, three important realisations occur:

1) The narrator realises that she is at the correct address as Mrs. Dorling is wearing her mother's sweater. From the faded buttons, it is evident that the sweater has been worn fairly often.

2) The narrator knows she is unwelcome as Mrs. Dorling does not even let the narrator come into the house. The narrator goes away disappointed and unsuccessful in collecting her things.

3) The narrator hears a door open and close within the house behind Mrs. Dorling. The readers know then that there is another person in the house, someone whom Mrs. Dorling is anxious to keep away from the narrator.

As the narrator walks back to the train station, she recalls how once on returning home from the university during the first half of World War II, she had found several of their household items missing. Her mother had then informed her that Mrs. Dorling, an old acquaintance of her mother's, had renewed their contact and insisted that she (Mrs. Dorling) keep their things safe during the war. The narrator also recalls another incident when she had seen Mrs. Dorling for an instant in a brown coat and shapeless hat, before the woman left with yet another instalment of the narrator's things. 

The narrator's mother, an apparently gullible woman, did not seem to suspect Mrs. Dorling of any ulterior motive. Mrs. S, the narrator's woman was more worried about Mrs. Dorling hurting herself or being attacked by someone while carrying their things back to Marconi street for safekeeping. She asked her daughter to remember Mrs. Dorling's address in case the narrator was the only one who survived the war.

After the first unsuccessful visit, the narrator ruminates about why she took so long to return for her mother's things. The war and the loss of her family had settled heavily on the narrator's heart. She only felt fear and hesitation when she thought about the things kept at Mrs. Dorling's house. Each of those things carried memories of her life before the war. The pain of loss stopped her from returning for her things sooner.

The impact of war on civilians has been portrayed in several books and movies including 'The Diary of a Young Girl: Anne Frank', 'Sarah's Key' by Tatiana de Rosnay, 'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas' by John Boyne and movies such as 'Schindler's List'. The torture of the concentration camps, the loss of loved ones left a painful ever-lasting impact. The narrator's observation of the light-coloured bread, familiar views and unthreatened sleep implies the coarse stale food of the camps, the view of barren land and barbed wires and a sleep forever threatened with pain and death.

After the first failed attempt, the narrator tried to visit Mrs. Dorling again. This time, the woman was not at home and she was greeted by her fifteen year old daughter. The girl showed off the antiques in her house to the narrator oblivious to the fact that they had once belonged to the narrator's own home. When the narrator finds that her things had now become part of someone else's life and memories, she decides not to take her things after all. The memories associated with her things were overwhelming, there was no space for such fancy items in the small room where she lived now, everything was now a part of someone else's home and life creating new memories each day. The visit was actually successful in the sense that the narrator was finally able to find the strength to move on and felt that of all the memories left behind by the war, the address with her mother's old things would be the easiest to forget.

The Last Passage

QUESTION BANK

Q.1.  Why did the narrator,Mrs. S’s daughter ,specially made a trip to 46,Marconi street ? Did she achieveher purpose?

Q.2.  Describe the second visit  of Mrs. S’s daughter to the house of Mrs. Dorling.Why did  she not wait to meet Mrs. Dorling?

Q.3.  Why did the narrator say that forgetting Mrs. Dorling’s address would be easy?

Q.4.   Compare the lifestyle of Mrs. S before the war with her daughter’s after the war?

Q.5.   Justify the title of the story “The Address”

Q.6.   Who was Mrs. Dorling? Why did  she visit Mrs. S’s house frequently?

Q.7.   What were the narrator’s feelings initially about the things that had been left with Mrs. Dorling?

Q.8.    Why did the narrator say ‘I was in a room I knew and did not know’?

Q.9.    What is the impact of war on civilians?

Q.10.   Could Mrs. S’s daughter get back to her old life after she come back to the city where she lived before the war