Stones From The River Essay Research Paper

Stones From The River Essay, Research Paper

1. Synopsis of “Stones from the River”

Trudi Montag was growing up during the World Wars in Burgdorf, Germany. She lived with her father, Leo, and helped him run their pay library. When she was young her mother, Gertrude, went insane, and died at the asylum. Trudi could remember how her mother used to run away, and after her father carried her home, he would lock her up in the attic, to try to prevent her from escaping again. She always did escape, and Trudi usually found her outside, hiding under the stairs. Trudi would spend time with her mother in the attic, or under the stairs. In the attic, the two would play with the paper dolls Leo gave his wife, and Gertrude would teach Trudi how to escape from the attic. Under the stairs, Gertrude told Trudi of her affair with her husband’s friend, Emil, and how she fell off his motorcycle one day, and skinned her knee. Her knee healed, but the stones could be felt beneath her skin if she let someone try to feel for them. That very same day Leo got shot in the knee in the First World War, and had to come home, and would forever walk with a limp. Gertrude blamed herself for her husband’s injury, just as Trudi blamed herself for her mother’s death.

Trudi was born a dwarf, a Zwerg, in German. Trudi felt that if she were a normal baby/child, then her mother would have never tried to run away. Trudi thought that it was her fault her mother went insane, and had to go to an asylum, where her mother died. Although Trudi’s father told her it was not her fault her mom died, she blamed herself anyway. Trudi and her dad became close, and would spend their time playing, reading, walking, or working in the library together. At the end of the book, Trudi felt a great lose when her dad died the day after his birthday. Ever since his friend Emil died, and Mrs. Abramowitz was taken away for being a Jew in WW II, Leo grew weak, and seemed to give up his will to live.

Trudi hated the fact that she was a dwarf, and began to hang from doorframes in attempt to stretch her body. She would also tie her mother’s scarves around her head to keep it from growing at night and pray everyday to grow. She asked the town doctor how to make her grow, and even drank some “magic potion” from a man who said it would make her grow. Trudi had no friends in school, and every child made fun of her, expect those who were also “different.” Trudi had one friend when she was young; a boy named George Weiler. George’s mom wanted a girl, so she dressed George in stockings and blouses, and refused to cut his hair. The children shunned him for looking like a girl, so George also had no friends like Trudi. One day Trudi convinced George to let her cut his hair, and he agreed. His mother was very mad, but George looked a boy, and the other boys began to be friends with him. Trudi was mad at herself for cutting his hair and as George began to play with the boys, their friendship soon diminished. Trudi became friends with Eva Rosen, the Doctor’s daughter. Eva showed Trudi her birthmark that was on her chest, and Trudi went and told everyone. Eva stopped talking to Trudi the day at school when the girls pinned Eva against a wall to see her birthmark. Trudi was tormented by the children in school for being a dwarf, and when the four boys from her class found her spying on them, they took her into a barn, and each proceeded to touch Trudi as she tried to scream for help. George was one of the boys, but could not bring himself to torment Trudi like the others did.

Trudi’s next friend was Ingrid, a very pious girl. She and Trudi got along great, except Trudi was jealous of Ingrid because she was tall, pretty, and had a good body. Ingrid hated her body and how she looked which made Trudi very mad. Trudi and Ingrid went dancing one night with Klaus Malter, who liked Ingrid. Ingrid refused to like any man because she wanted to join a convent. Klaus asked Ingrid to dance, but she refused, so he asked Trudi. While the two were dancing, she and Klaus kissed. That was her first kiss, the first time a man ever showed affection for her. She began to love Klaus, but from there on, the two hardly spoke, and Trudi became very angry when Klaus got engaged to another woman.

Trudi had a thing for knowing everyone’s secrets, then telling them to people in return for their secrets. She became the town gossip, and people tried to avoid her because even if they did not want to tell her their secrets, she’d get them out of the people anyway. Trudi hurt people a lot by telling their secrets to others. She enjoyed hurting others because so many hurt her by treating her different because she was a dwarf. Trudi also liked to read the newspaper in the section that wanted responses for mates to the description it gave. Trudi responded to two of the descriptions, and told the men to meet her at a restaurant. She wrote to each of the men, giving a false description of her, and told them to wear a brown handkerchief in his pocket, and to carry two white carnations. She went to the restaurant and watched to two men suffer through trying to find the women that responded to his letter. Trudi did this a second time, with no intention of going to the restaurant, but she did. She saw the man she responded to, who did not look at her when he was searching for the woman who responded to his letter. This angered Trudi, so she went up to the man