The Cage

Chapter 1

Reading Check

1. Her children (Chapter 1)

2. Her daughter (Chapter 1)

Short Answer

1. The first-person narrator toggles back and forth between the night’s terror and the day’s calm, which they experience in Camp Mittelsteine. The first-person narrator’s references to her nightmares of Nazi torture, in the following paragraphs, disrupt this sense of calm; a full night’s sleep “happens so very, very seldom.” (Chapter 1)

Chapters 2-4

Reading Check

1. Passover, or Pesach (Chapter 2)

2. The Grubers (Chapter 3)

Short Answer

1. In this section, we see Riva recognize that her mother would feel deep pain upon losing her, and so Riva harnesses her courage by remembering her mother’s strength as she persevered through the death of her father and son and remembering that she courageously sent her oldest children away to protect them. Like her mother, Riva adopts those around her (the young boy in the crowd, Abram). (Chapters 2-4)

Chapters 5-7

Reading Check

1. The Judenrat (Chapter 5)

2. Making braids from fabric scraps that will later become rugs for Germans (Chapter 7)

Short Answer

1. In September 1942, Nazis enter the ghetto to remove the sick, the old, and children. Riva calls them “messengers of death” as they enter homes and quickly force families to flee into the street. (Chapter 6)

Chapters 8-10

Reading Check

1. Moishe, Mrs. Avram’s son-in-law (Chapter 8)

2. A week’s worth of bread rations (Chapter 9)

Short Answer

1. In much of Chapters 8-10, Riva’s intense internal voice returns, asking her not only to work with her siblings but to serve them and sacrifice for them. In Miss Wolkowna’s office, Riva is finally able to use her voice, boldly articulating (much as her own mother had) the needs of her family. She slowly gains some of the voice that so often feels silent, and in adopting this protective, passionate, maternal voice, she demonstrates that she is becoming more like her mother. (Chapters 8-10)

Chapters 11-13

Reading Check

1. Laibele (Chapter 11)

2. To Mark’s house; he is a friend of Henry’s (Chapter 13)

Short Answer

1. Riva realizes that “betrayal” and “deceit” are not neat categories. For example, in this section, Riva observes that the Jewish police seem to betray their own people by threatening her family. In response, Riva and Motele must repeatedly lie to the police in order to sustain their safety. Earlier in the novel, betrayal and deceit were dangerous and divisive, but in this circumstance, they begin to seem necessary for survival. In this changing atmosphere, Riva again longs for her mother, but she also continues to act like her mother. Armed with her mother’s advice, Riva continually stands up to authority figures in order to protect those whom she loves. (Chapters 11-13)

Chapters 14-16

Reading Check

1. Because Laibele is wishing for firewood to warm their house in the bitter cold (Chapter 14)

2. Yulek Schwartz (Chapter 16)

Short Answer

1. Riva observes that there is no painting the apartment, no scrubbing of the floors—essentially there is none of the hustle and bustle that she typically associates with the holiday. What’s more, her mother, who is central to Riva’s memory of the holiday, is absent. (Chapter 15)

Chapters 17-20

Reading Check

1. A grocery store (Chapter 17)

2. Mr. Berkenwald (Chapter 18)

Short Answer

1. As Riva escapes into a private world of poems and literature with Yulek, the written word creates bonds not only politically (between the young socialists) or familiarly (connecting siblings), but also romantically. Mortality begins to seem increasingly arbitrary, as finding one’s name on the deportation list seems inevitable, but Riva can apply memories from the Jewish faith, recalled by the Pesach holiday, to find some orienting meaning in her and her community’s experience. Books give the community “hope,” writes Riva; they “strengthen our will to live, to plan for a better, brighter tomorrow. The knowledge they bring to our hungry minds gives new energy to our weak bodies.” (81) (Chapters 17-20)

Chapters 21-24

Reading Check

1. Invading Russians (Chapter 21)

2. Family photographs, including one of their mother (Chapter 22)

Short Answer

1. Their mother’s legacy and specifically her advice: “If hope is lost, all is lost” gives them hope. Though Riva and her siblings physically draw together for comfort as they confront fear, it is the internal, mental comfort of their mother that helps their bodies move forward. In the large numbers of Jews who crowd the streets and the train station on this last day, Riva sees that the image of a mother’s love, the need to learn from and live from memory, and the sense of intense doom that she feels are not in isolation. (Chapters 21-24)

Chapters 25-27

Reading Check

1. Karola (Chapter 25)

2. Soup in a can (Chapter 26)

Short Answer

1. In Riva’s nightmare, she is “surrounded by living skeletons, their eyes bulging from their heads and their bony arms reaching out” as if to “embrace” her (128). When she jumps out of the dream, though, she wonders if the skeletons were part of her reality or part of her nightmare. (Chapter 27)

Chapters 28-31

Reading Check

1. Chopin (Chapter 28)

2. Seven days (Chapter 29)

Short Answer

1. Riva’s description of the natural beauty is part of the motif of darkness (the camp) and light (the beautiful natural surroundings). As the chapter goes on, despite the beautiful nature around Mittelsteine, and the absence of gas chambers, Riva’s bunk is still like a “coffin” for its dark, claustrophobic dimensions. The motif of darkness is oppressive, but it also mirrors the repeated, inward voices of Riva’s mother and brothers, voices that come to her through others (like Rifkele) when she cannot summon them for herself. These voices (the light) give her the courage to remember her own name as she remembers the number that is meant to replace it and remove her humanity. (Chapters 28-31)

Chapters 32-36

Reading Check

1. An electric drill (Chapter 32)

2. “The clay grave” (Chapter 33)

Short Answer

1. Some examples from Chapters 32-36 include how the song “Marseillaise” keeps the Frenchmen working on the bunker united and hopeful in their labor. Also, the value of words and sound to connect and inspire people crescendos when Riva finally writes her poem, featured on page 157, and unites the “spirit” and “hunger to survive” at Mittelsteine (157). Finally, the Hanukkah songs in the barracks pull the entire community together around the shared tradition that, as Pesach did for Riva and her brothers, both helps the young women remember the history that binds them together and allows them to find courage for the future. (Chapters 32-36)

Chapters 37-41

Reading Check

1. The sharp edge of a bucket (Chapter 37)

2. He says she should write with her left (non-dominant) hand (Chapter 41)

Short Answer

1. En route to the hospital, Riva falls to the ground with weakness because she is so sick. Riva tells the guard she cannot continue, and to Riva’s surprise, the guard reaches out to help Riva up. The guard also asks Riva questions about herself. (Chapter 38)

Chapters 42-44

Reading Check

1. 3 months (Chapter 43)

2. Russian (Chapters 42-44)

Short Answer

1. In Chapter 42, Karola recites a poem in Yiddish that “tells of a regime that brings slavery and misery to a people and of a new regime that pays back the oppressor with the same misery it caused” (186-7). The dangerous message is a mystery to the commandant and the guards, who do not punish Karola, for they cannot understand her words. (Chapter 42)

Chapters 45-48

Reading Check

1. Her journal (Chapter 45)

2. Riva’s birthday (Chapter 46)

Short Answer

1. Riva notices “the white, serene homes look like something from a beautiful picture postcard” (207). Riva wonders how those in their peaceful homes can watch them walk by each day. (Chapter 47)