`` The Last Train `` By Ayse Kulin - 1096 Words

Ones’ identity during war changes a person not only physically, but mentally, emotionally and spiritually. The turmoil of war and being a hunted person for ones’ religion changes the human psyche to fear everything and live in a constant hidden and fearful state. In The Last Train to Istanbul, author Ayse Kulin creates a novel in which the characters change themselves as they live through the persecution of Jews and the fear that is instilled in their lives. The novel focuses on how ones’ identity is changed during war; their personal, psyche identity, their gender identity, and the governmental identity during World War II. A person’s identity can change across a life time, but during a time of war and crisis, that change accelerates and happens instantly. The psyche of a Jew during World War II was crushed and diminished; they had lost hope of surviving and running away from such terrible persecution. The Romeo and Juliet-esque love between Selva and Rafo happened, developed, grew stronger and stronger, until they were married and left Istanbul for a new life in Paris. Because of Rafo’s Jewish heritage, he was a wanted man by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, and everyday he was on the streets of Paris, he was unsure if it could be his last. Selva lived in a constant fear that she would never see Rafo again or that she could never return home because of the Nazis and SS soldiers. That fear that Selva and Rafo both felt, though of two different religions, changed them as