In the great history of man, there is no event committed as gut-wrenchingly ignoble as the Holocaust. Therefore, conveying the devastation and emotional trauma on a believable and personal level is a sign of fantastic writing, which can be seen in Elie Wiesel’s Night. Moreover, to take this awful situation and put an almost light-hearted twist on it is also increasable, which is seen in the film “Life is Beautiful.” Accordingly, both of these mediums portray main characters that are in concentration camps, but present them in varying ways that create stories that feel completely different. There are similarities and differences to be found in the stories through God’s provisions, the father/son relationships, and their tones.
From the small town of Sighet in Transylvania to the huge concentration camps of Auschwitz. Elie Wiesel, the author and victim of the book Night, the horrifying experience of the Holocaust. Wiesel is a 15 year old Jewish boy who was captured by the Germans or “Nazis” during WWII. He went through an overwhelming amount of trauma, like when he got separated from his mother and sisters and watching his father suffer an unbearable amount of pain that eventually killed him. The fact is, power is a tool that can corrupt itself and others, it can ruin people’s lives and it can do that without people even realizing it. Corruption can be a very surreptitious and overwhelming thing, but unfortunately it’s everywhere. Power can corrupt by putting fear
Further into the memoir, the father-son relationship develops as Wiesel and his father help each other survive. When Wiesel's father is beaten for not marching correctly, Wiesel begins to teach him: "I decided to give my father lessons in marching in steps, in keeping time. We began practicing in front of our block. I would command: 'Left, right!' and my father would try" (Wiesel 55). Although many of the prisoners mock Wiesel and his father for marching, the father and son tolerate the ridicule and are aware that they have each other's backs. The father-son relationship here expands as they know that the survival of each other is more important than any sort of humiliation or embarrassment. When Wiesel's father thought that he was going to die, he says, "Here, take this knife…I won't need it anymore. You may find it useful. Also take this spoon. Don't sell it. Quickly! Go ahead, take what I'm giving you" (Wiesel 75). Character development from Wiesel's father is displayed in his powerful statement because he is willing to give up his survival weapons in order to guarantee the survival of his son. The relationship is mutual as the father and
Elie Wiesel goes through 2 years of inhumane treatment, but always looks forward, because he has his father. When the Holocaust starts to come to an end, his father dies from Dysentery, leaving Elie lifeless. Although, through all that hardship, he recovers and that family bond can preserve sanity, and never to give up on life.
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. To develop the theme of denial and its consequences, Wiesel uses juxtaposition and characterization.
In the World War II extermination camp Chelmno there were 150,000 deaths, the camp Belzec had 435,000 deaths, and the notorious Auschwitz-Birkenau camp ruled with over 1,000,000 deaths. In the unbelievable novel Night by Elie Wiesel, the author gives the audience a first person look on his experiences throughout his time at several prisoner of war camps as a Jewish teenager. Through the use of motifs about the night and a person’s eyes, Wiesel writes about the deeper meaning of how he kept his dignity in the face of inhumane cruelty. By analyzing the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, one can interpret the central theme of the story into a deeper meaning from the descriptions of the night and eyes, which is important because it helps younger generations to understand clearly what Holocaust survivors endured.
The severely cruel conditions of concentration camps had a profound impact on everyone who had the misfortune of experiencing them. For Elie Wiesel, the author of Night and a survivor of Auschwitz, one aspect of himself that was greatly impacted was his view of humanity. During his time before, during, and after the holocaust, Elie changed from being a boy with a relatively average outlook on mankind, to a shadow of a man with no faith in the goodness of society, before regaining confidence in humanity once again later in his life.
In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, Eliezer Wiesel narrates the legendary tale of what happened to him and his father during the Holocaust. In the introduction, Wiesel talks about how his village in Seghet was never worried about the war until it was too late. Wiesel’s village received advanced notice of the Germans, but the whole village ignored it. Throughout the entire account, Wiesel has many traits that are key to his survival in the concertation camps. Eliezer’s best traits come out and allow him to survive his terrible ordeal, which are adaptability, determination, patience, and perseverance. Elie uses his father as his reason to persevere and keep on going through.
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. Wiesel addresses not only his own situation, but also the effect survival had inwards other fathers and sons in the camp. The memoir
Elie Wiesel wanted to show the world the horrible act of indifference and how it has personally affected him as a child and for his whole life growing up. Wiesel manages to create many viewpoints and to throw us in his shoes for us to understand the inhumanity of the ones had no sympathy towards the jews during the holocaust. Wiesel’s use of ethos, pathos, logos, diction, and allusion certainly gives the audience information and emotions he was hoping
It is a human instinct to prioritize one's well-being before others. We are constantly confronted with situations where we as humans have to take action for our own contentment. In the book, Night by Elie Wiesel, he shares his own traumatic experience of the Holocaust, which was a mass murder of 12 million Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, basically anyone who is different and wouldn’t fit into Adolf Hitler’s image of a perfect society. Despite how ruthless the Holocaust was, the Elie and his fellow prisoners fought and fought for their freedom, displaying how much humanity will fight for survival. By looking at the following examples: A child kills his own father for a loaf of bread, a son leaving his father behind during one of the march so he would not die, and Elie debating if he should let his father die so he could have a higher chance of surviving. It becomes clear that Elie Wiesel`s commentary on human nature is that, during extreme circumstances, people are selfish and would achieve anything for their own survival.
“The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.” (Bob Marley) Throughout history there are few people remembered for their integrity, for their tyranny, dishonesty, selfishness, yes, but integrity is such a rare true thing that is untouchable by those around those who possess it. It shines through the darkness. For instance, William Wilberforce, born and raised in a wealthy traditional family was involved in abolitionism,promoting education for the underprivileged, Christianity, strict uprightness and health and wellbeing of animals. Wilberforce worked from the age of 27 till his death he worked in parliament to outlaw the slave trade. Or Winston
“Yes, you can lose somebody overnight, yes, your whole life can be turned upside down. Life is short. It can come and go like a feather in the wind.”- Shania Twain. At times, it appears unviable for one’s life to transform overnight in just a few hours. However, this is something various individuals experienced in soul and flesh as they were impinged by those atrocious memoirs of the Holocaust. In addition, the symbolism portrayed throughout the novel Night, written by Elie Wiesel, presents an effective fathoming of the feelings and thoughts of what it’s like to undergo such an unethical circumstance. For instance, nighttime plays a symbolic figure throughout the progression of the story as its used to symbolize death, darkness of the soul,
“‘The only thing that keeps me alive,” he kept saying, “is to know that Reizel and the little ones are still alive. Were it not for them, I would give up’” (Wiesel, 45). This is said by a Jewish man attempting to fight an onerous and exhausting fight against death. His family was his will to live. In the graphic novel Maus II, Art Spiegelman reveals what hardships his father had to go through to survive his time during the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel depicted what him and his father went through to withstand the suffering in the concentration camps during the holocaust in his autobiography, Night. The connection between these two works from contrasting genres is the relationships and loyalty to family and friendships shown throughout these accounts. When facing critical situations, remaining loyal to your family and friends is more essential to survival than self-preservation and resourcefulness. Having close relationships with friends and family could benefit you by granting you opportunities to receive support, resources and other components to survival. Family and friends can also serve as your motivation to persevere through difficult times. If in the end you do survive alone, who left would there be to share your victory with? If you left your friends and family to suffer alone and focused on self-perseverance, all that you went through to survive would be inconsequential.
Elie Wiesel was a young boy when he did survived the holocaust.. In his memoir Night, we follow his journey as a Jewish boy in a time where expressing your religion could mean life or death. Between living under the watch of Nazi regimes, trying to keep his father alive, and surviving the inhumanity of others, Elie’s had fought and lived through the genocide unlike any other. However, surviving the holocaust does not come without a price. Wiesel lived at the sacrifice of his faith and identity, which were left in fragments after the existence of evil that left a permanent scar on his life.