Within Truth and Lamentation, Arnost Lustig's short story "The Lemon" is featured in the "Transmitting Truths" chapter. The story begins in medias res with two children, Ervin and his friend Chicky, in conversation over the worth of Ervin's dead father's trousers and ultimately ends with Ervin mourning his father alone and lemon-less. Throughout the story, Ervin's internal monologue is featured as he grieves his father's death whilst trying to obtain a lemon in hopes that it can cure his sister, Miriam, from the same fate. Arnost Lustig includes the internal monologue of Ervin in “The Lemon” in order to create empathy and convey the true horrors of the Holocaust through a lens that resonates on fundamental, universal levels. Especially apparent …show more content…
Prior to removing his father's gold tooth, Ervin has to justify this act and ultimately reconcile with himself what he is about to do. He goes, "But this isn't your father anymore, he told himself; he was only until yesterday. Now there is nothing but a weight and the task of carrying it away, he reminded himself immediately. But I'll think of him only in good ways. And Mother and Miriam will think about him as if nothing's happened" (Lustig, 104). As seen in his monologue, Ervin has to repeatedly reassure himself that his father is gone and no longer with him. This reassurance benefits both Ervin in his decision and the reader in their acceptance of Ervin's choice. The "immediate" need for remembrance also indicates the volatile decision that he has to make and how easy it is for him to want to deter himself from this choice. By presenting these feelings as an internal conflict, Ervin's decision to remove the golden tooth is more readily accepted even though the description is grotesque. Because Lustig includes Ervin's inner thoughts, the unthinkable choices that individuals had to make in order to survive during the Holocaust are ever so slightly more understandable for those that did not witness the atrocities and horrors that