In Night by Elie Wiesel and Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer destruction appears often. Throughout human history, destruction has maintained a universal presence. In their works, Safran Foer and Wiesel illustrate the ideal that with destruction comes rebirth and that destruction does not prove the end, but merely the beginning. Destruction, like so many other things in the world, proves cyclic. Destruction cannot easily by stream lined into one basic principle, but more easily by destruction of physical things, destruction of youth, and destruction of one’s humanity.
For rebirth to exist, there must be destruction. With the destruction of physical things man makes room for progress, whether positive or negative. Both Wiesel and Safran Foer use physical destruction to bring more meaning to their protagonist’s journeys.
In Elie Wiesel’s Night destruction proves consistent in Elie’s and his father’s journey. The destruction for them begins with the destruction of the Jew’s businesses and homes in Sighet. “One day I was able to get up, after gathering all my strength. I wanted to see myself in the mirror hanging on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto. From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me. The look in his eyes, as he gazed at me, has never left me” (Wiesel 115). The physical destruction of Elie and his body, makes him feel as though he has already died. This destruction makes it more available for him to grow from his experience and share his experiences with others, but that initial shock of his physical and spiritual death and rebirth, startles Elie.
In Safran Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated the novel begins and ends with physical destruction that leads to the creation...
... middle of paper ...
...
Destruction is universal. By experiencing destruction and reacting to it humans create something new in lieu of the destruction. Destruction can be described as destruction of physical things, destruction of youth, and destruction of humanity, both the characters in Everything is Illuminated and Elie Wiesel in his memoir Night, experience the destruction of all of these. Destruction exists constantly in daily life, one’s reaction to the destruction and grows from it that defines him as a person. The ability for destruction defines humanity, humans are the only species with the ability for destruction of our humanity and our innocence because humans solely possess the capability to be innocent.
Works Cited
Foer, Jonathan Safran. Everything Is Illuminated: a Novel. New York: Perennial, 2003. Print.
Wiesel, Elie. Night. New York: Hill and Wang, 2006. Print.
Could you imagine a cold breeze that just cuts you up left and right? Or perhaps long days of starvation, with the sight of grass pleasing your stomach. For Elie Wiesel this was no imagination, nor a dream, this was in fact reality. Such a horrifying experience in his life he felt he had to share in a book called Night. Gertrude Samuels, who wrote the review, "When Evil Closed In," tries to help you depict on what devastating situations Elie was put through.
In the book “Night” by Elie Wiesel The main character was effected by the events in the book because he didn’t care if he died, he wasn't mournful over death, and he was psychologically affected. Elie Wiesel was affected because of his time in the concentration camp and the things that they did to him and others. While ending here, the effects of the concentration camps during the holocaust left many people with nothing to live for and nobody to live for. The holocaust was one of the worst times in history and should never have happened, and will never happen
“My father's presence was the only thing that stopped me. He was running next to me, out of breath, out of strength, desperate. I had no right to let myself die. What would he do without me? I was his sole support.” This quote from the book night represents the father son relationship in the book written by Elie Wiesel. Elie Wiesel was a famous writer and a Holocaust survivor. He wrote many nonfiction books, and night being one of his most successful. Through this book, Elie Wiesel indicated that when night came bad things happened. Elie, a young Jewish boy, and his family were forced into small ghettos by Nazis during World War II. Elie and his family later departed to the unknown were the Nazis sent them to a concentration camp in Auschwitz.
“Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.” (Wiesel 2006, p. 34) Elie Wiesel is a humanitarian but better known as a holocaust survivor and the author of the book Night. Elie recounts the horrors of his experience throughout the book and revisits times which he had not touched upon in years. His book initially only sold a few copies but later on through this renewed interest, Elie Wiesel’s book skyrocketed to fame and he started his journey in his humanitarian activities which in turn earned him a Nobel peace prize and resulted in his famous speech, Hope, Despair, and Memory. In Elie Wiesel’s speech, Hope Despair and Memory Elie Wiesel reminds us through his use of pathos and ethos as a speaker of the despair that humankind can create, but through our recollection and memories obtained from such despair we can summon the future with hope of change.
The novel “Night” tells the story of Elie and his family in World War II. The family get separated and Elie is only left with his father. The reason Elie is affected so deeply by his father’s death is because his father is all he has left and he broke his promise to not follow the actions of the Rabbi’s son.
Elie Wiesel has gone through more in life than any of us could ever imagine. One of my favorite quotes from him says, “To forget a holocaust is to kill twice.” In his novel “Night” we are given an in-depth look at the pure evil that was experienced during the rise and fall of Nazi Germany. We see as Wiesel goes from a faithful, kind Jewish boy to a survivor. As he experiences these events they change him drastically. We first see a boy with a feeling of hope and ignorance as his hometown is occupied and he’s moved into the ghettos. Then as he’s transferred to a concentration camp he questions his faith and slowly loses a sense of who he once was. But all of this puts him in an important position, he knows that he must share with the world what
Many themes exist in Night, Elie Wiesel’s nightmarish story of his Holocaust experience. From normal life in a small town to physical abuse in concentration camps, Night chronicles the journey of Wiesel’s teenage years. Neither Wiesel nor any of the Jews in Sighet could have imagined the horrors that would befall them as their lived changed under the Nazi regime. The Jews all lived peaceful, civilized lives before German occupation. Eliezer Wiesel was concerned with mysticism and his father was “more involved with the welfare of others than with that of his own kin” (4). This would change in the coming weeks, as Jews are segregated, sent to camps, and both physically and emotionally abused. These changes and abuse would dehumanize men and cause them to revert to basic instincts. Wiesel and his peers devolve from civilized human beings to savage animals during the course of Night.
...sel about ten years to write Night and he believes he has a moral obligation to, “ try to prevent the enemy from enjoying one last victory by allowing his crimes to be erased from human memory” (viii). Wiesel is a mentally strong person because for most Holocaust survivors retelling is reliving. In Wiesel’s Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech, he seems to have come out of “night” and have faith in God, “ But I have faith. Faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and even in His creation” (120). At the end of the book, Wiesel gathers enough strength to look at himself through a mirror, ”From the depths of a mirror, a corpse was contemplating me. The look in his eyes has never left me” (115). Although inside he is alive, from what he sees in the mirror, he is dead. It is our responsibility to stop an event of this magnitude from ever occurring again.
In the 1940s under the rule of Adolf Hitler, German soldiers caused great destruction throughout Europe. Elie Wiesel, a young boy at the time, was caught in the traumatic crossfire of the devastation occurring in that time period. The memoir, Night, tells the horrific stories that Elie Wiesel experienced. Elie was forced into concentration camps with his dad where he soon had to grow up fast to face the reality of his new life filled with violence, inhumanity and starvation, many of which he had never endured before. In Elie Wiesel’s novel Night he validates his theme of violence and inhumane treatment toward Jews through the use of excessive force such as the brutal beating to show Eliezer that he should not have been roaming the camp and
In the novel Night, Elie Wiesel faces the horrors of the Holocaust, where he loses many friends and family, and almost his life. He starts as a kind young boy, however, his environment influences many of the decisions he makes. Throughout the novel, Elie Wiesel changes into a selfish boy, thinks of his father as a liability and loses his faith in God as an outcome his surroundings.
During the Holocaust many people were severely tortured and murdered. The holocaust caused the death of six million Jewish people, as well as the death of 5 million non-Jewish people. All of the people, who died during this time, died because of the Nazis’: a large hate group composed of extremely Ignoble, licentious, and rapacious people. They caused the prisoners to suffer physically and mentally; thus, causing them to lose all hope of ever being rescued. In the novel Night, by Elie Wiesel, Elie went through so much depression, and it caused him to struggle with surviving everyday life in a concentration camp. While Elie stayed in the concentration camp, he saw so many people get executed, abused, and even tortured. Eventually, Elie lost all hope of surviving, but he still managed to survive. This novel is a perfect example of hopelessness: it does not offer any hope. There are so many pieces of evidence that support this claim throughout the entire novel. First of all, many people lost everything that had value in their life; many people lost the faith in their own religion; and the tone of the story is very depressing.
Wiesel's Night is about what the Holocaust did, not just to the Jews, but by extension, to humanity. People all over the world were devastated by this atrocious act, and there are still people today who haven't overcome the effects. One example of the heinous acts of the Germans that stands out occurs at the end of the war, when Elie and the rest of the camp of Buna is being forced to transfer to Gleiwitz. This transfer is a long, arduous, and tiring journey for all who are involved. The weather is painfully cold, and snow fell heavily; the distance is greater than most people today will even dream of walking. The huge mass of people is often forced to run, and if one collapses, is injured, or simply can no longer bear the pain, they are shot or trampled without pity. An image that secures itself in Elie's memory is that of Rabbi Eliahou's son's leaving the Rabbi for dead. The father and son are running together when the father begins to grow tired. As the Rabbi falls farther and farther behind his son, his son runs on, pretending not to see what is happening to his father. This spectacle causes Elie to think of what he would do if his father ever became as weak as the Rabbi. He decides that he would never leave his father, even if staying with him would be the cause of his death. The German forces are so adept at breaking the spirits of the Jews that we can see the effects throughout Elie's novel. Elie's faith in God, above all other things, is strong at the onset of the novel, but grows weaker as it goes on. We see this when Elie's father politely asks the gypsy where the lavoratories are. Not only does the gypsy not grace his father with a response, but he also delivers a blow to his head that sent him to the floor. Elie watches the entire exhibition, but doesn't even blink. He realizes that nothing, not even his faith in God, can save him from the physical punishment that would await him if he tried to counterattack the gypsy. If the gypsy's attack had come just one day earlier, Elie probably would have struck back. However, the effect of the spiritual beating by the Germans was already being felt.
with a vivid imagery of a world that was already falling apart, prior to humanity’s infliction upon
In the final moments of Night, Elie has been broken down to only the most basic ideas of humanity; survival in it of itself has become the only thing left for him to cling to. After the chain of unfortunate events that led to his newfound solitude after his father’s abrupt death, Elie “thought only to eat. [He] thought not of [his] father, or [his] mother” (113). He was consumed with the ideas of survival, so he repeatedly only expressed his ideas of gluttony rather than taking the time to consider what happened to his family. The stress of survival allocated all of Elie’s energy to that cause alone. Other humanistic feelings like remorse, love, and faith were outcast when they seemed completely unimportant to his now sole goal of survival. The fading of his emotions was not sudden mishap though; he had been worn away with time. Faith was one of the most prominent key elements in Elie’s will to continue, but it faded through constant. During the hanging of a young boy Elie heard a man call to the crowd pleading, “Where is merciful God, where is He?” (64). It snapped Elie’s resolve. From this point on, he brought up and questioned his faith on a regular basis. Afterwards, most other traits disappeared like steam after a fire is extinguished. Alone in the wet embers the will to survive kept burning throughout the heart ache. When all else is lost, humans try to survive for no reason other than to survive, and Wiesel did survive. He survived with mental scars that persisted the ten long years of his silence. Even now after his suffering has, Elie continues to constantly repeat the word never throughout his writing. To write his memoir he was forced to reopen the lacerations the strains of survival left inside his brain. He strongly proclaims, “Never shall I forget that night...Never shall I forget the smoke...Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the
“Even in darkness, it is possible to create light”(Wiesel). In Night, a memoir by Elie Wiesel, the author, as a young boy who profoundly believed in his religion, experiences the life of a prisoner in the Holocaust. He struggles to stay with his father while trying to survive. Through his experience, he witnesses the changes in his people as they fight each other for themselves. He himself also notices the change within himself. In Night, it is discovered that atrocities and cruel treatment can make decent people into brutes. Elie himself also shows signs of becoming a brute for his survival, but escapes this fate, which is shown through his interactions with his father.