"He never spoke of his past, for fear of evoking sympathy and also because he had not yet come to grips with it in his mind. The unhappy years with his father were a broken mirror in his memory...Rolf went through life with his emotions bared, tripping over his pride, falling, and struggling to his feet again." - pg. 91-92
The way Lukas Carle had treated his son growing up negatively shaped the person he became. He feared the compassion that people usually love to sense, and almost seemed immune to expressing himself to people around him, even though he was a loving and pleasure-seeking person at heart. Rolfe seemed to sense no emotion regarding his fathers loss. Much in the way that Eva had to deal with her mother's death and move on with her life, Rolfe had to do the same as well, but their reactions to a family member dying were polar opposites. Eva loved her mother and learned to care a great deal about those around her and to put faith in them as well. Rolfe seems to mistrust people and realized that he would have to be independent and "would require a strong armor if he was to survive."
The way Eva and Rolfe dealt with death is an incredible thing to look at it because of how we perceive death today. A death in the family is seen as a dramatic loss, and people mourn for months and years to come. At the time that Eva and Rolfe lived, death was something that was maybe more common, and it was seen as something to not dwell over. This, to me personally, seems like an incredibly difficult task, even if those feelings were forced upon me.
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