Dark Shadows cast by Light

On page 38 of The Assault, Harry Mulisch references the creation of a poem that depicts light in the world in the symbol of love. However, where there is light, there is darkness, and Mulisch recognizes this, but uses the signified to say that the darkness in the world is the opposite of the light, which to the characters is love. Even though the author makes this obvious statement of the inverse relationship between light and darkness, the author takes a leap and suggests that in order to defeat the darkness in the world, the people who possess light must adapt some of the darkness in order to use that same hatred which is darkness to get rid of the already present hatred in the world. The author depicts this relationship in order to show the reader that the attempt to extinguish all the love or hatred in the world is impossible. Just as in nature, the two proponents go hand in hand in an endless struggle. The entire war is broken down in those two paragraphs between a people who want love to exist no matter where or what, and there are people fighting against that, because they do not love, but hate others for their own beliefs and identity as a person. The reason why the characters feel hopeless in the novel is to elucidate the idea that the fighting is pointless, and there is never really going to be a winner in a war where there can only be loss of ideology, faith, and personality.