Voice In The Fiftieth Gate By Mark Baker

Mark Baker’s use of voice conveys purpose within his non-fictional bricolage ‘the Fiftieth Gate’ allowing for a holistic understanding of the circumstances surrounding the events of his parent’s past. From the juxtaposition of the rotative perspective that surrounds his family, such as the suffering that plagues their memories, to his own, historical-backed voice. Mark Baker captures memory through the use of midrash, an interplay of motifs like the fifty gates and structure depicted within different text types, eventually weaving these fragments together in order to establish a fully realised text.

At first glance, Mark Baker exploration of the events in regards to the Holocaust is quite difficult to grasp as the gates transition through

In Gate 32, Baker uses a recording transcript structured like an interview where the mother engages in dialogue with Baker allows Baker to gain a personal perspective of his mother’s Holocaust narrative, “One hundred percent black. I’m telling you, we washed, we walked a bit, and we went back to the bunker.” The interruptions as Genia is talking to Baker creates a more genuine and real-life dialogue about her family’s past. It insinuates with Baker’s interruptions that he is trying to make sense of her narrative while she is telling the story. Baker acknowledges the pain his parents had to suffer as a result of the Holocaust, In Gate 11, “My father works amongst his departed friends, seeking signs of intimacy with fragmented moment from his childhood.” The quote explores the fragility of memory, with emphasis on the fragmentation of his father’s childhood. It is through an understanding of these circumstances that allow the voices of Baker’s parents to resonate within the book and allow him to further establish purpose and meaning. In gate 42, Baker establishes an imaginative recreation of the past

Baker uses the family tree constructed from an archive to build an understanding of his father’s family history. He does this to make sense of the fragments of his knowledge in order to tell a correct narrative of the Bekiernaszyn family. In Gate 6, “So I help him. I hand him the family tree I have constructed from archives in Poland… A tailor born in 1815, he married…” Baker makes reference to document as a narrator, he uses the marriage certificate to validate his father’s narrative, to allow his father to make sense of his family history and evoke his memory, so he can make sense of his narrative. The Interruption of Baker’s narration with father’s recording/transcript and his father’s recording transcript completes the narrative. Allowing the facts and archives to complete his father’s own personal memories. At this turning point, in order to balance the gaps within his parent’s memory, Baker’s own perspective is portrayed through historically backed research. From the beginning of the novel through gate 24, Baker maintains a skeptical viewpoint, “It was not the facts that were held under suspicion, but her credibility as a survivor.” He associates trauma with physical injury, an idea that coincides with the fact that personal memory is often selective, full of gaps and silences reiterating their unreliability, in which Baker must “turn to history” after he has “exhausted