Differences In Night And We Grow Accustomed To The Dark By Elie Wiesel

Each and every one of us sees the world in a different light than each other. These differences in perception are not completely random. Everyone’s perception of the world around us is affected by certain factors. Both the autobiographical memoir, Night, by Elie Wiesel, and the poem, “We grow accustomed to the Dark,” by Emily Dickinson, demonstrate a magnitude of factors affecting how we see the world. Night depicts Wiesel’s journey throughout the Holocaust, while “We grow accustomed to the Dark” exhibits our journeys when encountering new obstacles. Based on the universal concept of “How We See Things,” two factors that affect our perception of the world around us are our upbringings and our experiences when facing new obstacles due to the

‘Oh God, Master of the Universe, give me the strength never to do what Rabbi Eliahu’s son has done’” (Wiesel 91). The topic of a father and son relationship is extremely personal to Wiesel, which makes him hark back to how he was raised: religiously. Though clouded with a sense of reality from his experience in the camps, Wiesel still has hints of hope in his view of the world from his upbringing in Sighet. Thus, our upbringing affects much of the way we see the

For instance, in the second stanza of “We grow accustomed to the Dark,” the narrator states, “A moment - We uncertain step / For newness of the night - / Then - fit our Vision to the Dark - / And meet the Road - erect -” (Dickinson 5-8). We are shy and uncertain of what the world has to offer for us when first facing an obstacle. However, as we grow more and more prepared for the obstacle, we gain confidence, both in handling that obstacle and in future encounters of the world to come. Another example of this factor would be in the fourth stanza, in which the narrator states, “The Bravest - grope a little - / And sometimes hit a Tree / Directly in the Forehead -” (Dickinson 13-15). In society, we always see and hear stories about feats of bravery and heroes. We try to emulate them and be like them, even when it is hard. Though with this effort of emulation, we will eventually be successful in molding our view of the world to be seen through bravery. In turn, when we experience new obstacles, we also experience changes in our view of the