Structure of the 50th Gate Mark Baker

The structure of the Fiftieth Gate

Fragmented Narrative Structure
In place of a linear narrative style (i.e. a flow through from the beginning to the end), 50th Gate features a fragmented narrative structure, with different intersecting and overlapping scenes. Mark Baker structures the book in this way because ‘he doesn’t not believe in beginnings, nor in endings’. He believes that life is not linear, similarly, the place the book ends is the place it begins; “it always begins in blackness until the first light illuminates a hidden fragment of memory”. Baker does this through incorporating historical documentation based on his research as a historian, narratives of his and his parents’ memories and other forms, such as poetry and prayers. He also reconstructs narratives to provide a story which memory a history can only convey together. Through this, he’s able to question and undermine the question of history (i.e. the history of the Holocaust) and how it is remembered in society. Baker provides a more broad perspective of the Holocaust in an attempt to get closer to the ‘truth’.

Significance of 50 Chapters

Non-Fiction Language Style
Mark Baker includes a mixture of biography and oral testimony from his parents, his personal memories, documented facts and uses creative reconstruction of certain events. This structure is unusual in a non-fiction text which is what 50th gate is, however he uses it to support the idea that he’s trying to send to the reader which is the question of which is more reliable- history or memory. These are some example of where Baker’s use of structure shows this idea:

Language techniques:
Poetry/poetic language: is used in chapters like: (III1,XI: Dad can you hear?, XV2, XXIX3, XLII). The poetry is put in the ‘memory’ sections in the book which add more emotion and allows the reader to empathise with the characters. (In this carload, I am Hinda…’)

Oral Testimony: is used to represent memory. At times the characters cannot remember certain events details accurately (fecks, fecks-VII), which highlights Baker’s questioning of the reliability of memory. (XXII4: father’s memory of the weather vs the weather bureau and testimonies of other survivors) (XXXII5)