In the novel The Assault, by Harry Mulisch, a young boy named Anton, endures a traumatic event. His house is set ablaze, and all of his immediate family is killed. As the novel follows Anton through the course of his life, he receives multiple explanations about the night of the incident. These explanations both simple and complex. In order for an explanation to be complex, the descriptions of the event need to be incredibly detailed, and the reasoning behind each action are required to be quite in depth. The novel ultimately states that complex explanations are more effective for reasons such that with simplicity, some truth is lost, and contextual evidence of why the event occurred is lost. With complexity, further details are gained about …show more content…
Complex explanations have the ability to give full details about what ultimately causes the event to occur. Something missing in the simple explanations of the destruction of Anton’s family is the reason behind why it actually occurred. for example, what happened previous to Ploeg being shot. Ploeg’s assassin, Gijs Takes, is able to explain to Anton exactly why it was decided that Ploeg needed to be killed. Furthermore, he is able to explain exactly why he decided that shooting Ploeg on Anton’s street was the best idea for him. With this explanation Anton is able to understand exactly what took place in front of his house, and can partially come to terms with it: “‘[y]ou were right to kill the bastard, really; I have no complaints about that’” (Mulisch 117). Therefore, with this complex explanation Anton receives a copious amount of information about that night. However, he still has the attitude that “‘[w]hat happened happened, and that’s all there is to it. It can’t be changed now, even if [he] [understands] it’” (Mulisch 117). Meaning that even with such a detailed explanation he does not feel any better about what actually happened that night. No matter the how complex the explanation, nothing can change what