The littlest Hitler

The littlest Hitler

To see how far you can go and to try out limits can be fun. Just not when you take it too far. Children do not always know the consequences of their actions, but life among children can be fun. Just not when bullying is a theme and the power of popularity enters into it.

  In this short story, the main character is a boy called Davy. The story is written with first-person narration, and we follow Davy’s point of view. He is an unspoiled and innocent child, who goes to a public school in 4th grade. He is naive and lives alone with his dad. Davy does not like conflicts and especially not to cause them. When he goes into the school bus in his Hitler costume, all the trouble starts, and he feels guilty about it. He is a sensitive boy, and as he says, it did not take long for Lisette’s friends to make him cry. He is also thoughtful, which we see on the bus, when he notices, that there is not a single Jewish person on it. It also shows that he does not want to hurt anybody. At home at the end, he thinks about throwing all his candy into the fire, but again he is thoughtful and remembers the rule, and anyway he would not want to through an entire Snickers bar away. He fells sad for Hannah and Mike Friedlander, because they are not aloud to go trick or treat as he. He is very sympathetic and wants to give them his whole bag of candy. In spite of all this being nice and well behaved, he likes to try out limits. It is a part of being a child, to see how far you can go and to challenge yourself and others. It is a way to find out who you are, and what you are able to handle. Davy just wants to be a scary guy for Halloween, but he has no idea of the consequences of being dressed as Hitler. Though he knows what an awful man Hitler was, he chooses to dress like him. I assume, that from watching PBS, Davy has an idea of what sort of reactions it could cause to be dressed as Hitler, but he wants to try it out anyway, too see what will happen. He also shows this desire to try out limits at the end of the story. “Then I reached into the stove to see how far I could go before it really started to hurt.” (P. 3 L 118-19) This is exactly the same thing as he does by going as Hitler for Halloween. Simply to see how far he can go before it starts to hurt.