Harry Mulisch, Discovery of Heaven (1992/eng.trans 1997):

In a world full of war, famine, oppression, deceit, monotony, what – apart from the eternal innocence of animals – offers an image of hope? A mother with a newborn child in her arms? The child may end up as a murderer, or a murder victim, so that the hopeful image is a prefiguration of a pieta: a mother with her newly dead child on her lap. No, the image of hope is someone passing with a musical instrument case. It is not contributing to oppression, or to liberation either, but to something that continues below the surface … (p.56)