How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
The door opened with a crash, and the dark echoed with outlandish orders in that curt, barbaric barking of Germans in command which seems to give vent to millennial anger. (1.27)
How do we get a sense of Primo's attitude toward the Germans through his images of their language as "outlandish," "barbaric" and "barking"?
Quote #2
I understand that they are ordering me to be quiet, but the word is new to me, and since I do not know its meaning and implications, my inquietude increases. The confusion of languages is a fundamental component of the manner of living here: one is surrounded by a perpetual Babel, in which everyone shouts orders and threats in languages never heard before, and woe betide whoever fails to grasp the meaning. No one has time here, no one has patience, no one listens to you; we latest arrivals instinctively collect in the corners, against the walls, afraid of being beaten. (3.4)
Babel comes from the story of the Tower of Babel in the Bible, where God creates a confusion of languages that prevents the people from working together to build their tower up to heaven. Why is this an appropriate image here? What might a confusion of languages accomplish within the camp?
Quote #3
[T]he train would stop and I would feel the warm air and the smell of hay and I would get out into the sun; then I would lie down on the ground to kiss the earth, as you read in books, with my face in the grass. And a woman would pass, and she would ask me "Who are you?" in Italian, and I would tell her my story in Italian, and she would understand, and she would give me food and shelter. And she would not believe the things I tell her, and I would show her the number on my arm, and then she would believe... (4.9)
Notice how Primo focuses on how he would speak to this dream woman in Italian? He repeats it no less than twice in a very short space, so we get a huge hint that this is important to him. His focus on this is a sign that he misses hearing his own language among the multitude of those unfamiliar ones spoken in camp. There's also the matter of telling one's story and being heard and believed. Speaking his native language gives him the ability to be heard and understood, both literally and metaphorically.