In life a single event can dramatically change a person forever, but how they survive determines what matters the most. In Night by Elie Wiesel and The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, two characters named Elie and Santiago are placed in life altering situations where they must figure out how to persevere. The dramatic book, Night, recounts the reprehensible treatment that Elie had to live through during the Holocaust. Elie endures horrible conditions in a Nazi concentration camp and learns survival. He chooses to separate himself from his negative experiences and still have hope. In contrast, The Alchemist provides hopeful insights when Santiago goes on a journey and discovers new ideas and hidden treasures. He discovers that playing it safe proves more dangerous to his freedom than taking risks. When placed in a life and death situation, Santiago learns that the Soul of the World is shared by everything. In both of these books, the characters have traumatic experiences that eventually create epiphanies that provide hope and …show more content…
He finds hope by learning that the Soul of the World has a spiritual force that meshes everyone together. Santiago must communicate with nature in what the novel considers the common language of the world, love. Santiago must seek out the help of the desert, wind, sun, and God in order to turn himself into the wind. His epiphany makes him recognize nature as a single, unified whole. Now Santiago understands that everything from a grain of sand to God himself shares the same physical and spiritual essence. In coming to this understanding, Santiago also believes he can “conquer the world.” (Coelho,157). He realizes the importance of hope on his journey and that he can and will persevere to the end. Santiago's epiphany leads to him pushing forward and finishing his journey of achieving his ultimate treasure of hope and
The decisions you make in your life always come with a good or bad ending. In the novel “night” by elie wiesel, elie has to make life and death decisions. This novel is about how elie made decisions that lead him and his family to a concentration camp and explains the horrible things they have had to experience. In the end elie was the only survivor in his family. The decisions throughout the novel Elie made impacted his life and his innocence.
So many survivors have a story to tell, so many people have a point to make, and many just want to understand the horror that when on during the holocaust. Elie Wiesel’s Night and Art Spiegelman’s Maus share many similarities and differences throughout the book such as plotline, family relationships, and author’s purpose. The plotline of both Maus and Night share similarities and differences.
Ever since humans came to be, they have done many things to ensure their survival. It’s the reason why we humans have evolved as much as we have. Humans have invented devices, accomplished many challenges, and have even relied on nothing but willpower to survive. When somebody survives a tragic event they are left with some terrifying memories that haunt them forever, but a few survivors are courageous enough to share their experience. Obviously, one of the shared experiences is the book called Night by Elie Wiesel.
The Importance of Perseverance At many times in people’s lives, they consider giving up. This is also true for Santiago, the protagonist in Paulo Coelho's fantasy novel The Alchemist. Santiago is on a journey to find a hidden treasure he saw in a dream. Along this journey he continues to contemplate whether he should just give up, or continue his adventure.
In a situation where your body is surviving on a thread, your stomach is inflated due to starvation and all the strength you had before is gone, you have to rely on mental and religious strength to carry you through your hardships. In Elie Wiesel’s “Night”, Elie talks about his personal experiences and hardships he faced during WWII and his life at Auschwitz as a young boy. Throughout the story Elie pushes through losing his mother and sister, lashings, seeing babies burned alive and the fear of death but also the hope for it in some situations. No amount of physical strength can help someone survive in the brutal place Auschwitz. Everywhere in the story Elie and other characters show that with mental and religious/spiritual strength, you can push through any hardship you have to face.
Life is full of good and bad experiences, but you don’t always have control of what happens. That can be scary sometimes and it depends on how you handle it as to whether you get out of that situation. In the memoir Night written by Elie Wiesel, Eli, a teenager had been taken away from his home and taken to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Night is the scary record of Elie Wiesel’s memories of the death of his own family and the death of his own innocence as he tries to fight his way out of the concentration camp. Over the course of the book, Eli changes from a believer in God living in bearable conditions to someone who has become profane because of the situation he’s been put in.
The Final Solution The Jewish question had been a topic that Hitler strived to find an answer to. He had a strong hate for Jews and wanted nothing but to vanish them from Germany. His answer to this question, the final solution, was a Nazi plan to exterminate all Jews. The book Night written by holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, the book Herman Goring: Hitler's Second-in-Command, written by Fred Ramen, and the journal article "Hitler's Role in the Final Solution", by Ian Kershaw, all provide an inside look on the final solution from both the oppressors and the oppressed.
World War II (WWII) was the most expensive and deadliest war recorded in history. During WWII millions of people were killed, tortured and starved to death. There were bombings that killed entire towns of people, concentration camps where the concept was work or die and many more atrocities. The books Night by Elie Wiesel and The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, show different perspectives of the many tragedies and deaths during WWII.
Paulo Coehlo’s, The Alchemist, explores the Hero’s Journey through the story of a shepherd, Santiago. Throughout the novel, Santiago becomes more aware of his potential as he pursues his Personal Legend. He faces temptations and obstacles as he develops as a character. The hero crosses the threshold when they leave their old reality in search for a new one. Santiago crosses the threshold by selling his sheep and taking a boat to Africa.
It is estimated that 6 million Jews died during the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel somehow managed to beat those odds. Sadly there was no one there to save Elie, the protagonist of Night, from the misery and distress that he would experience as he went through the Holocaust. He survived harsh beatings, sickness, hunger, thirst, dysentery, and all the other forms of death that plagued his environment. All this would not come without a toll on who Elie was as a character, causing him to undergo a dynamic change.
Ultimately Santiago has developed his identity through the soul of the world and alchemy and has achieved his personal legend
His desire to return to Fatima is what drives him to succeed. However, the desert is not able to help him, and so Santiago also expresses his love for Fatima to the wind. He wants to be the wind not only to prove to the tribesmen that they were indeed travelers, but to return to Fatima, and to be “able to reach every corner of the world, cross the seas, blow away the sands that cover [his] treasure, and carry the voice of the woman [he] love[s]” (146). He then also tells the wind that, “When you are loved, you can do anything in creation. When you are loved, there’s no need at all to understand what’s happening because everything happens within you, and even men can turn themselves into the wind.
During the whole story Santiago is trying to find his personal legend, he is trying to find his purpose in life. Therefore in the Alchemist, the most important thing is personal legend. Everything is based off Santiago’s personal legend, if he wouldn’t of became a shepherd the book wouldn’t be all about him following his personal legend and trying to figure out what his was. Santiago has to figure out a bunch of new things that lend his to his personal
Santiago never gives up on his quest and does everything he can to see it through. No matter how tired he is or how injured his hands and body are, he has a commitment to complete his task. He even goes as far as promising to God that he will pray 500 hail mary’s if he survives the full duration of his expedition, which is especially significant due to the fact that Santiago is not a man of faith. Not only is this theme reflected in the old man, but in both the marlin and Manolin as well.
His expedition of emotion which, seen to others, is unlike Santiago, and demonstrates a quality frown upon by men. It also demonstrates what Santiago has been through and is feeling, which resides in the boy’s caringness towards the old