Question

when darkness came on the second day, rolf tried to sing azucena to sleep with old austrian folk songs he had learned from his mother, but she was far beyond sleep. they spent most of the night talking, each in a stupor of exhaustion and hunger and shaking with cold. that night, imperceptibly, the unyielding floodgates that had contained rolf carlé’s past for so many years began to open, and the torrent of all that had lain hidden in the deepest and most secret layers of memory poured out, leveling before it the obstacles that had blocked his consciousness for so long. he could not tell it all to azucena; she perhaps did not know there was a world beyond the sea or time previous to her own; she was not capable of imagining europe in the years of the war. so he could not tell her of defeat, nor of the afternoon the russians had led them to the concentration camp to bury prisoners dead from starvation. why should he describe to her how the naked bodies piled like a mountain of firewood resembled fragile china? how could he tell this dying child about ovens and gallows? nor did he mention the night that he had seen his mother naked, shod in stiletto - heeled red boots, sobbing with humiliation. there was much he did not tell, but in those hours he relived for the first time all the things his mind had tried to erase. azucena had surrendered her fear to him and so, without wishing it, had obliged rolf to confront his own. there, beside that hellhole of mud, it was impossible for rolf to flee from himself any longer, and the visceral terror he had lived as a boy suddenly invaded him. he reverted to the years when he was the age of azucena and younger, and, like her, found himself trapped in a pit without escape, buried in life, his head barely above ground; he saw before his eyes the boots and legs of his father, who had removed his belt and was whipping it in the air with the never - forgotten hiss of a viper coiled to strike. sorrow flooded through him, intact and precise, as if it had lain always in his mind, waiting. he was once again in the armoire where his father locked him to punish him for imagined misbehavior, there where for eternal hours he had crouched with his eyes closed, not to see the darkness, with his hands over his ears to shut out the beating of his heart, trembling, huddled like a cornered animal. wandering in the mist of his memories he found his sister,

1. the section above mentions how azucena forces rolf to confront his own fear. what can you infer is rolf’s fear?

1. how does azucena’s predicament or problem force rolf to face his fear?

Explanation:

For question 9: The text reveals Rolf's repressed memories of being trapped (locked in an armoire, trapped in a "pit" of his childhood abuse), his trauma from war concentration camps, and his powerlessness as a child against his father's violence. These point to a core fear of being trapped, helpless, and unable to escape suffering, as well as the fear of confronting the unresolved trauma from his past.

For question 10: Azucena is physically trapped in mud, unable to escape, and she surrenders her fear to Rolf. Her helpless, trapped state mirrors Rolf's own childhood and war trauma of being powerless and trapped. Being with her, he cannot avoid the parallel between her situation and his repressed memories, forcing him to stop fleeing from his past and face the fear he has long buried.

Answer:

1. Rolf's fear is being trapped in helpless, inescapable suffering, and confronting the unresolved trauma of his abusive childhood (including being locked away by his father) and the horrors of his war experiences that he has spent years repressing.
2. Azucena's trapped, helpless predicament mirrors Rolf's own repressed memories of being powerless and trapped (as a child and in war). Her surrender of fear to him removes his ability to avoid his past, forcing him to confront the trauma and fear he has long hidden from.