Jaycie Jacobson Language Arts Mr. Foster 30 March 2023 Comparison Essay The Books Night, Maus, and Anthem all have very similar themes and messages throughout them. One of these themes is being alive is not living. In each book, the characters are forced to conform to the rules of others and they are given no way to improve. For example, in Night Elie is forced into Auschwitz and loses his will to improve and only thinks about how to survive. In Maus, Aldek and the other prisoners in the camps are treated as less than human. Also in Anthem Equality 7-2521 is forced to fight who he is and is punished for thinking for himself. To start, not long after Elie enters camp Auschwitz he begins to lose faith and trust in his god. This causes him to lose his ambition to improve he starts to question his god. In the text, Elie talks about what things he will never forget about his first night in camp and he states “Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever….Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.” (Wiesel 34) this shows how on the first night in Auschwitz that he starts to question why his god would let something like this happen and he starts to lose faith that his life will get better. While Elie was in the Buna camp he and the other prisoners were forced to watch the …show more content…
The prisoners are packed into the train and they do not have any room to sit. One day the train stops. While Valadik is on the train he uses the blanket he was given to make a hammock above everyone. This gives him the chance to read through the window and grab snow to eat. He also traded the snow for sugar and that saved his life. After a few days of sitting on the train Valdeck states “No food and no water, only screams inside.” The prisoners are forced to stay in the train and many are starved to death. Aldeck is not living because he has to trade snow for sugar just to
This is where– hanging from the gallows…” (65). This was a big turning point for Elie’s view towards god. He started to doubt God and what he stood for. Maybe he still thought God was there, but in Auschwitz, God was nowhere to be
” During his experience in the concentration camp Elie Wiesel loses faith in his fellow man and in God. He shows this through his thoughts and his actions. Elie Wiesel loses faith in man through the actions of the Nazis and when he first arrived at Auschwitz. Elie and his father both were told
The author was petrified by the series of events that unfolded in front of him; thus, he faced several internal struggles. When Elie first arrived at Auschwitz, he was in denial of the hellish nightmare that he was in. He was sickened
Elie states on page 109, “From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me. The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me.” Every person before they entered a concentration camp had a full life ahead of them. They were young with a bright future and many exciting
The way the Germans are treating Elie makes him believe that God is no longer by his side and that faith is no longer helping him. Once more, Wiesel expresses how the Germans are dehumanizing the Jews is by stating, “I knew that I was no longer arguing with him but death itself, with death that he had already chosen”(105). The concentration camps have made Elie believe that death is undeniable and that he no longer can fight to stay alive.
When Elie was in the concentration camp after a while he started to get used to all the death going around him, and the promise of hope to be diminished if it to come to anyone. He started to become empty with no feeling except hunger, no fear, no sorrow, no pity for his father, just the hungriness that was starting to drive him mad with all the others, “ No thought of revenge, or of parents. Only of bread.”(pg 115). He didn't have any thought of revenge or to make them suffer like he did. He found his sister afterwards and reunited with her, but that same emptiness that came with what he had been though was still there, and was to stay .
After he was finally hanged, Elie and the other prisoners were certainly aware that justice in Auschwitz did not exist. Not long after, Elie started to question his faith and his identity. He wondered why God would let such unjust and cruel things happen to his followers. These murders were so dehumanizing that Elie started to question everything he believed. Surviving was the one and only goal that he could hope to achieve.
“When I was very little, my father used to say, If you are alive, there is hope for a better day and something good to happen. If there is nothing good left in the destiny of a person, he or she will die” (Beah 54). On the other hand, Elie tends to lose faith when surviving in the concentration camp. “We were all going to die here. All limits had been passed.
When Elie finally arrives at Auschwitz, the sights he sees are horrendous. Immediately he sees “Infants tossed into the air and used as targets for the medicine guns” (Wiesel, Night 6). Elie’s first impression of Buchenwald is infants being brutally murdered. I can’t imagine how terrified he is to continue further into camp. The Germans were extremely insensitive towards the Jews and their feelings.
As an adolescent, Elie is forced to bear witness and experience unspeakable horrors; things that no child should ever have to go through. Seemingly overnight, Elie and over six million other Jews are stripped of their identity, faith, and humanity. Starting at his arrival in Auschwitz, Elie realizes the world’s capability of cruelty as he helplessly watches hundreds of men, women, and children alike being thrown into pits of flame. Left in utter horror, Elie questions “how it [is] possible that men, women, and children [are] being burned and the world [keeps] silent” (Wiesel 32). Years in malicious concentration camps, such as Auschwitz, Buna, and Buchenwald, result in detrimental physical and mental repercussions as prisoners are deprived of the most basic human rights.
Elie went through extreme adversity within the camps of Auschwitz yet still managed to persevere. The experiences Elie went through in camp Auschwitz changed him as an individual spiritually; a boy who was once devoted to God ceased to believe in him. Elie also lost his sense of self identity, as his personality completely changes. During his internment at Auschwitz and Buchenwald Elie completely loses his innocence. As a result of the adversity Elie faces throughout his time at the Auschwitz camp, his identity is tarnished and eventually reformed.
Through reading Night and viewing Life is Beautiful, it is evident that many parallels exist between the two works. Both stories demonstration of the Holocaust provide the audience with a clear message of the authors intent. In reviewing the works, many similarities also hold contrast, allowing for the distinct voice of each creator to show. While both Night and Life is Beautiful shed light on the relationship between father and son, the presence of 'light in darkness', and the narrator's perspective, each work provides a different execution of these key elements of the story.
This was portrayed when the Jewish population at the camps were questioning where god was and if he was real. Elie becomes a whole different person at the camps because of his suffering which leads to loss of faith and self identity. While in the camps Elie learned that suffering makes him a weaker person physically and mentally forcing him to lose self
Elie was held captive in concentration camps from 1944-1945. During his time in the concentration camps, he became grateful for what he had, overcame countless obstacles, and more importantly kept fighting until he was free. [The Holocaust is very important to learn about because it can teach you some important life lessons.] You should always be grateful for what you have, no matter what the circumstances are. This lesson can be learned when Elie says, “After my father’s death, nothing could touch me any more”(109).