Soldier X

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2003

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Part 1, Chapter 7

Part 1, Chapters 8-13

Part 2

Part 3-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Themes

The Loss of Names and Personal Identity to War and Violence

While names are typically, though not always, critical to establishing the identity of characters in written works, Soldier X expands on this characterization method by interrogating what happens when names fail or otherwise stop representing who one truly is. Names serve as a marker of personhood and individuality, yet through the titular X and others, the novel reminds the audience that these in themselves are privileges. World War II created many other markers of identity, such as uniforms, which erase personal identity and value, replacing all people, no matter how loyal, with caricatures of themselves and what they represent to the regimes of power.

While X is the strongest example of this theme, he is not the only one who loses themselves to the ripple effects of violence and political regimes. Although the Jewish prisoners are only present briefly, their appearance is a reminder of the violence and erasure of the Holocaust. The prisoners have no names but wear stars on their uniforms to communicate that they are Jewish. In this way, Nazi Germany replaced their names with a new marker: their Jewishness, represented in this way as a bad or inferior thing. The Jewish people were always Jewish, but Nazi Germany attempted to make this identification their only identity, an act of violence against them and Jewishness as a whole.

This then builds contrast with X’s experience of his loss of self. Although X is not a “perfect” member of the Nazi regime, due to his Russian heritage, he masquerades as one and still has his identity erased by the Nazi army. X starts the novel by erasing his own identity to survive in the Hitler Youth and as a young man in Germany, where he must pretend not to be Russian. Then, after the Russians advance, he must pretend to be only Russian. Next, he lives as both and neither: as X, the identity he has for most of the novel. Finally, he masquerades as American, if not intentionally, to his students. Nazi Germany—and the war overall—erase X’s sense of self from the very beginning. Erik Brandt has no value except as a faceless soldier, wearing the uniform of a dead man and expected to die for the cause of Germany. Although he is not systematically mistreated like the victims of the Holocaust, the novel still makes it noticeably clear that he has no value to the German army. Soldiers are not afforded personhood any more than civilians during this war; names themselves are a privilege, and death erases all.

Childhood and Innocence as a Privilege During War

Just as names and individuality are privileges in the novel, childhood and innocence are also privileges continually lost. Many of the characters in the novel are technically children: Most of the German soldiers are under 18, and Tamara herself is 15. Additionally, some of the Jewish prisoners and the partisans who fight against the Germans are described as young children. Regardless of their age, however, none of these children live as children; instead, they act and die as adults. This situation argues that especially during times of war, childhood and the associated concept of innocence are privileges if they can exist at all, since war devours everything and everyone.

Soldier X makes it continually clear that World War II spares nobody, regardless of their age. Old women like Elena Novak lose everything, and X watches the Nazis march 10-year-old boys off with guns to defend Berlin. The children, however, continually dream of being children again. Jakob reminisces on his comfortable family life and the freedom he grew up with, while Tamara relives her childhood in the abandoned playground on the school-turned-hospital grounds. Each relived memory proves that the characters are still children longing for something permanently lost to them. X acknowledges as much, saying to Tamara that he wishes to “at least have things back the way they were” when she asks if he wishes he could be a little kid again (128). While none of the characters had full innocence—as Tamara’s father was imprisoned, X grew up worried about being found out for being Russian, and so on—they still were protected by their status as children and were unprepared for that being taken away from them when war came and forced them into adulthood without warning. The characters grow throughout the book, but not by becoming adults—they grow by losing their connection to ever being a child.

The end of the book proves that childhood is lost to those who experience the violence of war. Instead of recovering his family life or any semblance of what was, X ends the novel by getting married to Tamara within a year. Marriage is typically depicted as the ultimate coming-of-age action, with characters letting go of their childhood to become an adult with their partner. By getting married quickly and moving into a new future, X demonstrates that he has lost connection with his childhood self. His family moves on and rebuilds the restaurant, continuing a life that he no longer has access to, while he restarts completely, unable to reconnect with the privilege of childhood cruelly taken away from him.

Ethical Ambiguities and the Cost of Survival During War

Throughout the novel, many different characters face difficult choices with ethical repercussions and ambiguity or are depicted as having faced these problems and overcome them—or not—in varying ways. One example is Elena Novak’s son Gunter: While he had the best intentions toward the Jewish members of his community, he still sold them out and then chose execution instead of letting something like that happen again. Gunter’s situation is presented neutrally; the book does not debate what he deserved for his mistakes but simply argues that survival has a cost, and some people choose to pay it, while others do not. World War II’s egregious devaluing of life and destruction of communities and individuals alike created an environment where simply living was an ethical ambiguity, yet the novel argues that all people should have the right to fight for their survival.

Every choice the characters make in the book is at the cost of someone else. X chooses to take on the life of Aleksandr, a dead soldier, causing deep harm to the real boy’s family, even if this effect is not shown on the page. The doctor’s choice not to tend to Nikolai, even if not intended to harm, cost him his legs. There are many such examples, and the book aims to treat each with both gravity and neutrality. In war, the easiest thing to do is die, and many soldiers treat it as a blessing; surviving is brutal and harsh and often leads to ethical problems and guilt. X’s experience of survivor’s guilt epitomizes this theme. He is ashamed that he feels glad to be alive, yet being alive allows him to change the world for himself and others—still, he has participated in a war that perpetrated intense atrocities and led to massive loss of life. The book argues that being alive is a radical act; dying, while sometimes seeming to be morally correct or easier, ends someone’s ability to change the world for the better.

The complexity of being human is illustrated by the choices the characters face and by the characterization of them all, regardless of affiliation, as humans. The book does not shrug off the atrocities of the Nazis and the Soviet Union, nor even the American army—as it is the Americans who permanently disable and disfigure X in unwarranted fire against civilians. At the same time, most characters are shown to be deeply human. They want to survive and see their families survive, yet the very existence of war means that the survival of some exists at the death of others. This is an ethical issue, but difficult to boil down into right and wrong because the war itself has ruined everyone’s chances for unity and cooperation.