Joseph leads Mamusia to believe her husband will be fine. Eva disapproves of such false hope, but Joseph is unapologetic. Would you rather have false hope or hear the truth?

Joseph leads Mamusia to believe her husband will be fine. When Eva confronts him about this, he said he was only trying to give her some comfort. Eva disapproves of such false hope, but Joseph is unapologetic. What did you think of this scene? Do you believe one character’s approach to truth-telling is preferable to the other’s? Would you rather have false hope in a similar situation, or prefer the truth, even if it’s difficult to hear?

There are many ways to reflect back on this scene - it fits into the story by shedding light onto both characters/ to me it’s a painful point in the book. I believe hope is extremely important however in this situation I would prefer truth. Joseph does not KNOW the truth but his giving Mamusia substantial false hope did not help her see the actual dire circumstances she & Eva were in.

Personally, I would want the truth. Was Joseph trying to provide comfort to Mamusia, prove how much power he had, or, ingratiate himself to Mamusia and Eva? One could probably make a case for any of those scenarios. I actually think it was a combination of all three. Fortunately, Eva didn't fall for his false hope and called him to task for it.

Haven't we all been in situations where all we wanted was hope? And haven't we all given hope to others even when we weren't sure if there was hope? I think Joseph meant well.

I doubt Mamusia would have heard the truth even if Joseph had told her. However, worse than giving Mamusia false hope, Joseph "comforts" undermined Eva's efforts to get her mother to face the reality of the situation.

I always want to know the truth. I think Joseph wanted to be seen as the "good guy": just say what the other person wants to hear.

I think that given one false hope is not a comfort at all. It can do more damage than help or comfort. I think that stating the truth is always better no matter how difficult it may be. Giving false hope begins a trail of false trust, if you receive enough false hope eventually you start to lose trust in anyone. I am glad that Eva called out Joseph on this. This point in the book led me to not trust Joseph and I felt that he would eventually become less trustworthy to Eva.

Joseph was playing both sides of the road. If he got in good with Mamusla, then he would also be able to get closer to Eva. Personally, I would like to know the truth, let me decide how I want to use it. I prefer to make my own decisions, not have them made for me.

I think that Joseph did the right thing by not conveying the truth to Mamusia. Mamusia was not dealing with the situation with her husband well at all and had seemed to refuse to believe anything that anyone told her. Joseph didn't know the truth, and was leaving her with hope.

I agree with other comments that Joseph was wrong in giving false hope to Eva's mother. She was already living in a kind of fantasy and did not need encouragement in her lack of realism. The fact that the father survived was a low probability event, and was all the more joyous for being unexpected. Probably Joseph was behaving this way to ingratiate himself with Eva and get more information to use in his betrayal.

Like joyb, I also agree that Joseph was wrong to give Mamusia false hope and that Joseph may just have been trying to ingratiate himself with Eva.

I'm very literal, I don't dwell in false hopes, so I would want to know the truth. By knowing the truth it allows you to move forward with reality instead of living in hopes and dreams. I'm not sure of Joseph's motivations in giving false hope other than trying to give someone a light at the end of the tunnel and he was successful with the mother, but Eva understood reality.