As always, Professor Schwartz hit me by surprise from our last meeting. In our class on Wednesday, we were manipulated by our professor to think that the Final Solution had similarities with the Final Problem. However, to no surprise our understanding and perspective of the book was disoriented. When Professor Schwartz brought up the fact that we found out the thief and murder but never found out the meaning behind the parrot, I knew that we were in for a treat. We were once again manipulated on the topic as the author might have intended to do. Since it is never explicitly said that the parrot was talking about the train cart numbers, we will never be able to know the author's true intentions. Just like in both the Cat's Cradle and The Things They Carried, I feel like the author manipulates the readers into thinking a certain way. However I feel like Chabon does this in a different matter by giving various context clues throughout the novel. For example, the book begins with introducing the time to be 1944 which is clearly the time of World War II. Along with that, we find that the boy is Jewish and was taken in probably due to the war. Finally, as brought up in class, the parrot only talked numbers when a train was passing by. Horrifically, it is quite possible that the trains were filled with Jewish people being sent to concentration camps. In my opinion, I think this is the true meaning for the numbers the parrot talks about. As mentioned in class, the book edition I read had a picture if train tracks and numbers covering the background. Lastly, the fact that Hitler had his own Final Solution really opened my eyes. This and the context clues were what really swayed my opinion. However, as Professor Schwartz mentioned this could just be the difference of detection and invention.