"A child is a hollow vessel with a thundering echo" (135).

This is how Carl Friedman describes her and her siblings' situation in the “Afterword.” Throughout the process of reading Nightfather, I've been trying to put my finger on exactly what role the children play in the story. Yes, they are an audience for the father, but they are too young and too innocent to effectively grapple with the concept of the Holocaust. Support? Not quite. Though they definitely are a positive light in the father's life, they can never fully comprehend what he went through. No, Carl Friedman is the one who finds the perfect description for herself and her siblings: hollow vessels. Her and her siblings' role in the novel is to absorb her father's stories, not as a responsive audience or as a support system, but as children who take what is said to them and regurgitate it back into their own lives. The father "fills up" his "empty" children with his memories and his experiences, thus making them their memories and their experiences. Numerous instances show how the children apply what happened to their father to situations that they personally experience. Whether it is burying toys or saving toothpaste, the children spin the father's story into their own. As Carl Friedman poses the question, “Where did the tales stop and reality begin?” (135) For the father, the stories are means of expelling his bitter feelings and scathing memories into the world. For the children, though, the stories act as fuel for their own lives, propelling their actions and emotions in directions basically predestined by their father's past.

I Want to Be One of Them

"'I want to be one of them. And you can only be one of them if you're half-starved or if you've had typhus. Being gassed a bit helps, too. Anyway, you have to have suffered damage in some way.'"(115)

The quotation above is said by Max. Max feels as though he is not good enough for his father. He feels neglected. Ephraim only gives him support through stories of the camp. Thus, Max almost always is the one who starts an event in which the children tried to recreate scenes from the camp. This is another such instance. Max has put his feet in the refrigerator because he wants to see what they will look like when they freeze. It is under these circumstances that he says the above. Max feels as though the person he wants to impress (his father) does not love him because Max has not gone through the camp, so he says he "[wants] to be one of them." Though he still wants to have camp, he separates himself from the survivors, saying "them." He is sadly aware of the fact that he does not have camp. He then says that "you can only be one of them if you're half-starved or if you've had typhus," as though he suddenly has become an expert on the specific requirements of having camp, of being respected. There is a sense of childish pride in his tone because he wants to impress his brothers. He takes this pride a step further by saying, "Being gassed a bit helps, too," as though he would be alive after having been gassed. Though he pretends to be an expert of suffering, he fails to understand that one does not survive a gassing, even if it is only "a bit." He tries to act mature, but he is sticking his foot in a refrigerator. "'You're crazy'"(115), replies Simon, but Max responds with a statement that sums up his feelings, "'Everybody's crazy in this house!'"(116). Max feels as though everyone he sees has gone mad because of their immense suffering, and he wants to fit in.