original_query: What is the metaphor in the film "The Reader" and why is it significant?
query: What is the metaphor in the film "The Reader" and why is it significant?
answer: The film uses Hanna's illiteracy as a metaphor for the collective German inability to confront its past and the horrors of the Holocaust.  This is significant because it suggests a deeper, more widespread failure to understand and atone for the atrocities committed than just individual culpability.