
Antonio Tabucchi’s Pereira Declares and Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s The Lives of Others are two very different narratives that when compared to each have a lot in common. Pereira Declares is a novel that tells the story of a journalist named Pereira who has struggled to find happiness in the world since his wife died. When looking for an assistant, Pereira meets a young gentleman named Monteiro Rossi who changes his life completely. Pereira establishes a relationship with Rossi which allows him to see the world in a new way. The Lives of Others is a film that follows the life of Gerd Wiesler, a Stasi agent monitoring the lives of East Berlin residents. Wiesler is assigned the task of watching play writer Georg Dreyman and reporting any suspicious behavior he might uncover. Throughout his surveillance, Wiesler discovers the true identity of Dreyman and undergoes a huge change of heart.  Pereira and Wiesler undergo significant transformations over the course of these narratives. Both men learn to show their true emotions and each show a caring heart. In addition, both narratives are under oppressive government regimes that force both characters to make rebelling choices. Tabucchi and Donnersmarck use vivid details in the narratives to evoke an emotional response from their audience. 

Throughout the course of both narratives, some significant transformations happen for both Pereira and Wiesler. Both men go from simple not very kind hearted people to men that undergo emotional transformations and later show great kindness to others. New people in their lives allow them to open their hearts to new relationships.  Pereira helps protect Rossi by hiding him from the government because he is in trouble. Rossi is on the run because he against the regime and they are out to get him. By helping Rossi and his girlfriend Marta, Pereira has grown as a character, “Dr. Pereira's sense of decency pushes him into helping Monteiro Rossi and Marta, changing him from an intellectual who works for a pro-fascist paper into an active opponent of the regime” (Rogow 207). By associating with Rossi and Marta, Pereira has learned to be a happier person. He has a new purpose in life and does things he would never use to do. At the end of the novel, Pereira publishes a piece that goes against the regime but he was truly expressing what he believed in. Wiesler also goes against the regime when he hides evidence from his boss, Grubitz, that would incriminate Dreyman. Before observing Dreyman, Wiesler was stone cold and emotionless. He didn’t seem to care about anyone and just did his job. After watching Dreyman and his girlfriend Christa-Maria Sieland, Wiesler started to care, “Wiesler gets so involved in other people’s lives that he cannot do his job. From spying on Dreyman and Sieland, Wiesler slowly begins to intervene in their lives in ways they cannot know… Wiesler even personally removes the incriminating typewriter from Dreyman’s apartment before Grubitz can find it” (Bernstein 32-34). Wiesler goes against his normal persona and doesn’t do his job. He chooses to protect Dreyman and Sieland instead of following orders. Observing the two so in love opened himself up and made him care about them. He decided that he would rather protect these two people about then do his job. By forming new relationships with people, Wiesler and Pereira both grow as people into better men.

A powerful regime that control the countries and forces the citizens to follow its order is significant in both texts. In Pereira Declares, Portugal is under a fascist regime. While in The Lives of Others, East German citizens are under constant surveillance by the Stasi, or East German secret police. The fascist government was very strict and to the point. It had no tolerance for citizens who disobeyed or disagreed with the government. Tabucchi gives some graphic details in the novel of what happened to people that disobeyed. He gives the reader details about some of these citizens’ gruesome deaths.

“Coming from a nation that has known fascism directly, Tabucchi shows us the effects of dictatorship with chilling realism. Tabucchi describes fascism through its mundane horrors, the everyday oppression of a country where even a journalist like Dr. Pereira can't hear or read the real news, and has to rely on a cafe waiter whose friend has a radio that gets the BBC” (Rogow 207). 

Fascism in Pereira Declares is cruel and depressing. Citizens are kept in the dark and not told any real news that could possibly lead to a rebellion. The Stasi government was a very strict and organized government as well.  If someone was thought to be doing something suspicious then that person would be under strict surveillance. The artists and entertainers struggled with this because their work is supposed to be controversial since it is supposed to be attention grabbing, “A film that depicts the power of art and artists to transform lives, the Stasi agents and government officials, for all their powers of surveillance, are utterly ignorant of and oblivious to the virtues of the arts and artists, and human nature” (Bernstein 31).  The Stasi government nipped creativity right in the bud especially for artists and entertainers if it did not follow the certain guidelines. If someone did not follow the guidelines, then that person would be blacklisted and will never work in their field again. Both powerful regimes had great control of their countries and knew how to keep people in line.  

Tabucchi and Donnersmarck are very descriptive in their writings and know how to appeal to the reader’s sense of emotion. Near the beginning of the novel, Pereira learns about the death of a local carter who is a traitor to the government and was taught a lesson. Tabucchi uses gruesome details to really get the reader to imagine the carter’s death, “A socialist carter had been shot down on his wagon in Alentejo and had drenched all his melons with his blood” (5). After reading about his death, it makes the reader want to cringe. The death is very detailed and it is really easy to picture the carter’s dead body on his melons. Also Tabucchi crushes the reader when he describes the death of Rossi, “Only then did he realize that the towel had come away all red with blood, Monteiro Rossi’s hair was sodden with it, his eyes wide open and staring at the ceiling. Pereira slapped his cheek again, but Monteiro Rossi gave no sign of coming to. Pereira grabbed his wrist, felt his pulse. But life ceased to flow in Monteiro Rossi’s veins” (129). The reader had an emotional connection with Rossi and enjoyed watching him progress as a character in the novel. But having him gone is hard because he was an important character in the novel. He was finally about to get the life he wanted then he died. It’s honestly quite depressing but Tabucchi got his audience to appeal to their emotions and feel for the loss of Rossi.  Donnersmarck also appeals to the reader’s emotion in the film when we watch Christa-Maria get hit by a truck and slowly die. Watching that scene caused the audience to feel great sadness and horror, “Fraught with the guilt of having informed on Dreyman in order to save herself, she commits suicide by running in front of a truck. Wiesler and Dreyman briefly stand in in mourning over her body” (Creech 103). It made you want to cry because she was a huge character in the movie and then she was just gone. Also you felt the love and emotion coming from Dreyman as he watched the women he loves die. Donnersmarck also does a great job of getting the audience to feel the emotions he is trying to convey in his film. Both men are great creators that know how to work their audience in order to get the emotional response they want.

Pereira Declares and The Lives of Others are two narratives that have characters that grow as people from the beginning to the end of each text. Both characters learn that there is another side to themselves that they never knew. New relationships with people bring out this different side in each character. Both Wiesler and Pereira give into their emotions and really care about other people. Both Wiesler and Pereira rebel against their powerful regimes because it was the only way for them to do what they felt was right. For Wiesler is was to protect Dreyman from danger and prevent him from getting in trouble. But for Pereira it was express himself through his writings by publishing a long story about Rossi’s life and the evils of the totalitarian government. Both authors induce an emotional response from the readers through their descriptive details. Tabucchi and Donnersmarck wanted their audience to feel like they were really there in the moment with the characters. So they used all the descriptive details so that in the audience’s mind they were there.  

Important note to the author of the paper: Use the above questions—AND your peer’s feedback—as you work on revising the paper and reflecting on your revision process. Then write at least one solid paragraph in which you explain the changes you have made to the rough draft and why. Copy and paste this short revision memo at the end of the document uploaded under Paper 4 Draft in the Electronic Portfolio. A penalty of 5 points applies if not. 

My essay 4 has changed a lot from the rough draft. My rough draft was like an outline that was disorganized and didn’t really flow well at. I made sure all my ideas flow well and make sense. I worked hard to organize my work in order to make the reader could understand what I am saying. I worked on providing quality topic and concluding sentences. In addition, I worked hard to integrate my quotes properly. I also had way too many quotes that didn’t really make sense so I cut them out. They were mostly just a repetition of what I kept saying and were unnecessary in my essay. When going through my paper, I realized that I had cited my sources in my rough draft incorrectly so I fixed that. In the citation, I kept putting the publication date instead of the page number. I know now to correctly cite using the MLA format. I think I kept confusing MLA and APA format together. I made a lot of changes to my rough draft through the suggestions of my peer editor. I worked hard to write a quality comparative analysis essay.    
