How did Harry Mulisch develop the symbolic meaning of objects in the novel The Assault to highlight the contrast between chance and fate? Life is a game and each person is a pawn. A small piece of something so much greater than themselves. Each decision is a dice roll, each step forward, someone else’s step back. The game renders its players independent enough to feel a sense of free will, but the game is too vast and inconceivable for a player to truly make it through on their own. A movement on one side of the board has immeasurable repercussions on a player on the other side. But is there a gamemaster? Someone overseeing the whole operation who has everything planned out? Or is it truly a game of chance? This is one question faced by Anton,…show more content… The author develops the symbolic meaning of objects to highlight the contrast between chance and fate through the symbolic stone, dice, and lizard. Through the development of the symbol of the stone representing the fated meeting of Anton and important figures in his life, the author highlights the contrast between chance and fate. Towards the beginning of the novel, moments before the titular assault occurs, Anton sits in his house with his family while his father explains the concept of a ‘symbolon’, which in Ancient Greece “was a stone that [a father and son] broke in two. [...] He keeps one half, and at home I give you the other. So then when you get there, they fit together exactly” (14). The ‘symbolon’ represents fate because if two people meet and their respective pieces of the stone fit together, they are destined to find each…show more content… By the end of the novel, Mulisch’s message about this contrast becomes clearer. Through the development of the symbol of the lizard, representing the compounded impact of small actions, the author highlights the contrast between chance and fate. Earlier in the novel, Anton recounts his childhood friendship with his neighbor Karin Koretweg and his discovery of her father’s hobby. Mr. Korteweg kept lizards in terrariums in his house, and Anton remembers that “the creatures stared at him out of a past as deep and immovable as themselves” (69). The fateful diction of the word “immovable” associates the lizard with fate. By comparing them to an immovable past, the author is saying that they have no power to move themselves, suggesting that their future is bound to fate. Conversely, in the end, it is revealed that Mr. Korteweg moved the Nazi officer’s body in front of Anton’s house, framing his family, to protect his
