The Devil's Arithmetic Themes

The Devil's Arithmetic Themes

The Importance of Remembering

In the end, Jane Yolen implies in The Devil's Arithmetic, all that a person has left of the past is memory. Everything else is gone, because every moment that is lived becomes part of the past and cannot be reclaimed. Anything that remains from the past, living or non-living, is changed by the passing of time, and the more time that passes, the more those things change. Finally, all that remains is memory, and many problems can arise if the past is forgotten. Yolen explores such ideas through the disinterest shown by her main character, Hannah Stern, concerning the act of remembering. Hannah is young and feels no connection to the traumatic experiences of her elders in the concentration camps of Germany. Only when she is transported by some magical means to the years of World War II and is thrown into one of those Nazi camps does she come...
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