It happened two years ago as I lay sprawled out on the floor of the library lounge at the Universite de Grenoble in Grenoble,
France. I was working on an explication du texte of Guillaume Apollinaire' poem "La Loreley" for my Poemes et Proses du XXe
Siecle class when I suddenly put it together: this was my approach to literature. Close reading, formalism. Staying close, very close, to the text. I was certain.
Certainty, however, proved rather unstable. I knew it was important not to close myself off from other approaches to literature, so when I returned to Swarthmore from Grenoble, I took two courses which I knew would be highly theoretical-Women Writers
1790-1830 and Feminist Literary Criticism. These courses brought me around to a kind of hybrid approach to literature which I
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I am using this approach to literature in two major projects this year.
First, I received a $2,400 National Endowment for the Humanities Younger Scholars Summer Research Grant. I proposed to expand on a prior research project, looking at the use of silence in the novels of Elie Wiesel, and at the ways Wiesel both demonstrates and gets around the fact that conventional language simply breaks down when it is used to talk about the
Holocaust. I plan to expand on the same project for my senior English thesis. For this thesis I am studying the ways Wiesel uses silence in the literal content of his novels and in his writing technique, and am working toward explanations as to how he gives these silences meaning. My fluency in French from my semester of study in Grenoble has been invaluable since most of
Wiesel's works were written originally in French. My thesis involves close, formalist readings of Wiesel's novels, and is enriched by theoretical work. (This thesis appears as "Senior Essay" on my transcript; that designation will change next semester to "Thesis.")
My second major project this year is a self-designed research project which has just replaced comprehensive exams in
Being the last sentence of the book, and out of all the passages I highlighted this one stood out to me and described Wiesel’s experience in just a few simple sentence. He looked at himself for the first time in many years, and did not recognize himself he saw a different person. This showed me that the concentration camps changed him he was a different person inside and out. The events that occurred to him had scared him so much that the man he saw in the mirror wasn’t him, but one who had been drained of life that looked lifeless from the events occurred in the concentration camps. He was weak and this whole passage embodies his weakness and the whole point of the concentration camps.
Themes in a story help to describe what the book is about. It does this in the book Night by helping describe what World War 2 was like for the Jews. It also helps to see what the people in the camps went through. My two themes from night are imprisonment and survival. The first one I will talk about is imprisonment, then i’ll talk about survival.
Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, Nobel Laureate and the author of Night, gave the speech “Perils of Indifference” on April 12, 1999 during the Millennium Lecture series which was hosted by President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton. According to Bill Clinton “The White House millennium program will guide and direct America's celebration of the millennium by showcasing the achievements that define us as a nation -- our culture, our scholarship, our scientific exploration," going into the new twenty-first century. Wiesel was invited to Lecture to speak about the horrific Holocaust which happened during the years 1933-1945 and to try help move on from the past it as the world goes into a new millennium. In the summer of 1944, Wiesel
Eliezer “Elie” Wiesel was born on September 30, 1928 in Sighet, Romania. He lived with his parents Shlomo and Sarah Wiesel and his three sisters Tzipora, Beatrice, and Hilda. Before, Elie and his family were taken to a concentration camp, he did his religious Judaism studies at a yeshiva. In May 1994 when Elie was only 15 years old his family was taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland. Elie and his father were sent Buna Werke, a labor camp that was apart of Auschwitz were he and his father worked in horrible conditions.
A book that I recently read that showed a reflection of my self-understanding was Missoula by Jon Krakauer because it extended my perspective on women’s safety on college campuses. The book Missoula shares stories of five women who were sexually assaulted at the University of Montana, Missoula and follows their cases all the way to trial. As a girl who has always been told that a college education is necessary to succeed in life, the idea that colleges arent safe for me felt like a secret that I wasnt allowed to know until I experienced it for myself. Reading the statistics and seeing how all of the rapists walked away unpunished strengthened my understanding of the fact that sexual assault is a normal occurance on college campuses.
Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night tells the personal tale of his account of the inhumanity and brutality the Nazis showed during the Holocaust. Night depicts the story of a young Jew from the small town of Sighet named Eliezer. Wiesel and his family are deported to the concentration camp known as Auschwitz. He must learn to survive with his father’s help until he finds liberation from the horror of the camp. This memoir, however, hides a greater lesson that can only be revealed through careful analyzation.
In the novel, “Night” Elie Wiesel communicates with the readers his thoughts and experiences during the Holocaust. Wiesel describes his fight for survival and journey questioning god’s justice, wanting an answer to why he would allow all these deaths to occur. His first time subjected into the concentration camp he felt fear, and was warned about the chimneys where the bodies were burned and turned into ashes. Despite being warned by an inmate about Auschwitz he stayed optimistic telling himself a human can’t possibly be that cruel to another human.
For every individual, it is difficult to give up two than one. In the novel Night, by Elie Wiesel, Elie magnanimously inputs his blood and sweat by sacrificing his strength and rations for the survival of his father. He holds unconditional hopes of believing that he will be able to make not only himself survive through the brutal camps under German control, but also his father through his efforts. Through this, Elie uses the relationship with his father to suggest that individuals should be independent for better survival because it is more efficient to create a single, strong individual rather than two weak ones. Elie may have continuously helped his father in lengthening his endurance, but failed to straighten his father’s will.
Wiesel is the author of the memoir Night, which mainly focuses on how Hitler’s power and hatred towards Jews make Eliezer and his family’s life miserable. Eliezer is only a teenager when he and his family are forced to leave their home, and they’re sent to various concentration camps where Eliezer has to fight hunger, diseases, and has to take care of his father. Going through various camps has a negative impact on Eliezer 's life, therefore at the end of the book, Eliezer’s father begins to experience Eliezer’s abnormal behavior towards him. In this memoir, Eliezer, his family, and millions of other Jews experience different types of dehumanization in the concentration camps during the World War II.
Night Prompt #2 Many know of the victims of the Holocaust and how fragile they were, but not many know how the few that survived did so. In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor who was only fourteen when he arrived at Auschwitz, he talks about his life alongside his father who was the only family member he did not get separated from in the concentration camp. Eliezer explains how he overcomes the horrors he witnessed in order to survive and be freed.
Night Critical Abdoul Bikienga Johann Schiller once said “It is not flesh and blood, but the heart which makes us fathers and sons”. But what happens when the night darkens our hearts our hearts? The Holocaust memoir Night does a phenomenal job of portraying possibly the most horrifying outcomes in such a situation. Through subtle and effective language, Wiesel is able to put into words the fearsome experiences he and his father went through in Auschwitz during the Holocaust. In his holocaust memoir, Night, Elie Wiesel utilizes imagery to show the effect that self-preservation can have on father son relationships.
It is a common assumption among numerous people in the world that the Holocaust never existed. In fact, almost fifty percent of the world population never even heard of the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel helped people around the world learn about the Holocaust through his book “Night.” He wanted people to see the bravery, courage, and guilt of the Jews through his book. “Night” shows the horrific and malicious acts in the German concentration camps during the Holocaust.
Author Bio Elie Wiesel, born September 30, 1928, is married to Marion Wiesel, who he has one son with. Elie Wiesel is a professor at Boston University in Boston, Massachusetts, he’s also taught at the City University of New York, and was a visiting scholar at Yale. Elie Wiesel is the Advisory Board chairman of the newspaper Algemeiner Journal. Elie Wiesel wrote Night based on his personal experience as a holocaust survivor. Elie Wiesel has received a Nobel Peace Prize, a Congressional Gold Medal, a Presidential Medal of Freedom awarded by George H. W. Bush, and many more awards.
The entire world was so ignorant to such a massacre of horrific events that were right under their noses, so Elie Wiesel persuades and expresses his viewpoint of neutrality to an audience. Wiesel uses the ignorance of the countries during World War II to express the effects of their involvement on the civilians, “And then I explain to him how naive we were, that the world did know and remained silent. And that is why I swore never to be silent when and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation” (Weisel). To persuade the audience, Elie uses facts to make the people become sentimental toward the victims of the Holocaust. Also, when Weisel shares his opinion with the audience, he gains people onto his side because of his authority and good reputation.
Night by Elie Wiesel shows when humans are put in horrible situations, the acts of selfishness greatly increase. The book shows that when humans are in crisis like the Holocaust everyone is desperate to survive, so they will do anything they can to get their basic needs. The people forgot who they are as human, and how it made Elie and others act differently towards each other. Elie Wiesel, and everyone who he meets along the way want to survive this, at times they forget why they want to live. But no one wants to get defeated by the Germans.