The books Night by Elie Wiesel and Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt hold many comparisons and contractions. Plots vary yet they still contain similarities, as do the characters and the themes. The time frame in both books take place during a war but at two very different times in history. Though the books have great likeness, the two still remain vastly distinctive.
Night by Elizer Wiesel narrates the tale of Elie during the Holocaust and the troubles caused by the Gestapo. Nazi aggressors force the Jewish people into lives of poverty and misery in concentration camps. When Elie thought that his world had ended American soldiers liberate the camps and the Jews can freely go back home. Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt tells the story of Jethro Creighton and his struggles at home during the American Civil War; his three eldest brothers, two of his cousins, and Shadrach go off to war. The war brings loss and hurt to the Creighton family and it ends after President Lincoln has won the reelection. Once the peace treaty confirms the end of war, the people can celebrate in relief that the fighting has ceased.
Both stories tell of a young boy that personally goes through the hardships of a war and must stay strong even when the option to quit becomes ideal. Jethro Creighton and Elie Wiesel stare the horrendous effects of the war in its metaphorical face, first and second hand. The wars that the children face take place in different eras in time; Elie has to participate in the removal of the Jews in the Holocaust in World War II and Jethro watches his family suffer and die in the American Civil War. Ellie himself goes through the concentration camps personally with his father as SS Officers watch their every move. He lost his father and ...
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...tells about the bonds of family. Family sticks together and carries a powerful bond. Though both stories have a theme of death and hurt, Night focuses more so on the fact that Elie lost most of everything he once had. Across Five Aprils holds a theme of forgiveness. John forgives Bill when Bill explains that his bullet did not kill their brother Tom.
The books, Night by Elie Wiesel and Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt, share many differences and many similarities. Though the plots differ, it shows many things alike. The characters and the books' themes also have many comparing and contrasting qualities, as does the time frame. These two interesting books prove that even though the two families live in different places at different times, they still have characteristics that bring them together.
Works Cited
Night by Elie Wiesel and Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt
After watching the movie Schindler’s list and reading the book night you can obviously spot some of the similarities between the two of these stories. The movie Schindler’s list directed by Steven Spielberg is about a nazi named Oskar Schindler. He started making money of the jews and the war at first. Then Oskar Schindler had changed for the better to save 1,200 jews from being killed in the holocaust. The book Night written by Elie Wiesel is about his time going through the holocaust as a 15 year old jew and having his faith tested every day for about one year. Sure these two stories are completely different type of views but there are some comparison and contrast that I have found by watching Schindler’s list and reading the book
It is interesting to read the connections of Night, by Elie Wiesel because they include the experiences of the Holocaust from other people's’ points of views. In A Spring Morning, by Ida Fink, it is shocking that the innocence has been stripped away from the child as the speaker reveals, “Fire years old! The age for teddy bears and blocks” (Wiesel 129). This child is born innocent, she has not harmed anyone, yet she has to suffer. Reading about the Holocaust is difficult, I wonder how others had the motivation to live during it. The description of a little girl getting shot is heartbreaking as the speaker explains, “At the edge of the sidewalk lay a small, bloody rag…. He [Aron] had to keep on walking, carrying his dead child” (Wiesel 133).
Night by Elie Wiesel was a memoir on one of the worst things to happen in human history, the Holocaust. A terrible time where the Nazi German empire started to take control of eastern Europe during WWII. This book tells of the terrible things that happened to the many Jewish people of that time. This time could easily change grown men, and just as easily a boy of 13. Elie’s relationship with God and his father have been changed forever thanks to the many atrocities committed at that time.
Night is an autobiography by a man named Eliezer Wiesel. The autobiography is a quite disturbing record of Elie’s childhood in the Nazi death camps Auschwitz and Buchenwald during world war two. While Night is Elie Wiesel’s testimony about his experiences in the Holocaust, Wiesel is not, precisely speaking, the story’s protagonist. Night is narrated by a boy named Eliezer who represents Elie, but details set apart the character Eliezer from the real life Elie. For instance, Eliezer wounds his foot in the concentration camps, while Elie actually wounded his knee. Wiesel fictionalizes seemingly unimportant details because he wants to distinguish his narrator from himself. It is almost impossibly painful for a survivor to write about his Holocaust experience, and the mechanism of a narrator allows Wiesel to distance himself somewhat from the experience, to look in from the outside.
In Eliezer Wiesel’s novel “Night”, it depicts the life of a father and son going through the concentration camp of World War II. Both Eliezer and his father are taken from their home, where they would experience inhuman and harsh conditions in the camps. The harsh conditions cause Eliezer and his father’s relationship to change. During their time in the camps, Eliezer Wiesel and his father experience a reversal of their roles.
The autobiography Night by Elie Wiesel contains similarities to A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway. These works are similar through the struggles that the main characters must face. The main characters, Elie Wiesel and Lieutenant Frederic Henry, both face complete alterations of personality. The struggles of life make a person stronger, yet significantly altering identity to the point where it no longer exists. This identity can be lost through extreme devotion, new experience, and immense tragedy.
"Night" by Elie Wiesel is a terrifying account of the Holocaust during World War II. Throughout this book we see a young Jewish boy's life turned upside down from his peaceful ways. The author explores how dangerous times break all social ties, leaving everyone to fight for themselves. He also shows how one's survival may be linked to faith and family.
Night by Elie Wiesel is a novelization of the struggles that were faced during the Holocaust. This novel is written to teach one that it is important to take action when injustice is seen. Wiesel uses first person point of view, imagery, and symbolism to display the ways one can be able to stand for what they believe in. He tells the reader how one impact the society they live in and that if no one takes action against injustice for the better then nothing will improve and society will not change. Wiesel says, “I stood petrified. What had happened to me? My father had just been struck, in front of me, and I had not even blinked. I had watched and kept silent. Only yesterday, I would have dug my nails into this criminal’s flesh. Had I changed that much? So fast? Remorse began to gnaw at me. All I could think was: I shall never forgive them for this” (Wiesel 39). He depicts that it should be difficult for humans to tolerate any injustice that they see. There are many current events going on around
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 Wiesel go from a faithful, kind Jewish boy to a survivor. As he experiences these events, they change him drastically.
The chaos and destruction that the Nazi’s are causing are not changing the lives of only Jews, but also the lives of citizens in other countries. Between Night by Elie Wiesel and The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom, comradeship, faith, strength, and people of visions are crucial to the survival of principle characters. Ironically, in both stories there is a foreseen future, that both seemed to be ignored.
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.
The ground is frozen, parents sob over their children, stomachs growl, stiff bodies huddle together to stay slightly warm. This was a recurrent scene during World War II. Night is a literary memoir of Elie Wiesel’s tenure in the Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel created a character reminiscent of himself with Eliezer. Eliezer experienced cruelty, stress, fear, and inhumanity at a very young age, fifteen. Through this, he struggled to maintain his Jewish faith, survive with his father, and endure the hardships placed on his body and mind.
Elie’s loss of innocence and childhood lifestyle is very pronounced within the book, Night. This book, written by the main character, Elie Wiesel, tells the readers about the experiences of Mr. Wiesel during the Holocaust. The book starts off by describing Elie’s life in his hometown, Sighet, with his family and friends. As fascism takes over Hungary, Elie and his family are sent north, to Auschwitz concentration camp. Elie stays with his father and speaks of his life during this time. Later, after many stories of the horrors and dehumanizing acts of the camp, Elie and his father make the treacherous march towards Gliewitz. Then they are hauled to Buchenwald by way of cattle cars in extremely deplorable conditions, even by Holocaust standards. The book ends as Elie’s father is now dead and the American army has liberated them. As Elie is recovering in the hospital he gazes at himself in a mirror, he subtly notes he much he has changed. In Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie loses his innocence and demeanour because he was traumatized by what he saw in the camps, his loss of faith in a God who stood idly by while his people suffered, and becoming selfish as he is forced to become selfish in the death camps to survive.
When people are placed in difficult, desolate situations, they often change in a substantial way. In Night by Elie Wiesel, the protagonist, Elie, is sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp where he undergoes many devastating experiences. Due to these traumatic events, Elie changes drastically, losing his passion in God, becoming disconnected with his father, and maturing when it matters most.
...e has to deal with the death of his family, the death of his innocence, and the death of his God at the very young age of fifteen. He retells the horrors of the concentration camp, of starvation, beatings, torture, illness, and hard labor. He comes to question how God could let this happen and to redefine the existence of God in the concentration camp. This book is also filled with acts of kindness and compassion amid the degradation and violence. It seems that for every act of violence that is committed, Elie counteracts with some act of compassion. Night is a reflection on goodness and evil, on responsibility to family and community, on the struggle to forge identity and to maintain faith. It shows one boy's transformation from spiritual idealism to spiritual death via his journey through the Nazi's failed attempt to conquer and erase a people and their faith.