“I have a competition in me. I want no-one else to succeed.”- Daniel Plainview. This quote shows how Daniel feels accomplished from being the only successful man he knows. Daniel believes whatever he is a part of he is the one who receives the credit for it. Daniel will take advantage of those who aren’t as educated in the business aspect of certain situations. “I am a false prophet! God is a superstition!”-Eli Sunday. These words that Eli shouts multiple times exposes his true inner person. Eli hides his true intentions behind his acts that he performs in the church. Eli denounces God for money that in the end wasn’t even given to him. Plenty of words can be used to describe the characters Daniel Plainview and Eli Sunday, but greed is one …show more content…
that seems to be suitable for both of them. Even though Daniel seems to not like the company of people, he still wants to have total control and credibility for what he works on. After the oil well is set up and the whole town comes to see its debut Eli asks Daniel to let him say a prayer before it commences. Daniel does not acknowledge his request and takes parts from Elis speech in his own and becomes the center of attention. Daniel has no respect for strangers no matter how they treat him. The Sunday family gives both Daniel and his son H.W. great hospitality, but still Daniel gives them a “Quail price” for the land. Rather than paying them a fairer price for the value of the oil they settle on a price that the family later regrets. As the movie progresses Daniel always has a companion with him when he discusses business with potential sellers or buyers. For both H.W. and Daniels brother have little to no say in the business discussions and are just there to be portrayed as a family business. When actually it just gives sellers and buyers trust in Daniel with his family act. Daniel shows his greed by being a one-man team and having the mentality where he only protects himself. Eli is a character who believes he does no wrong because he is the “chosen one”.
Eli carries himself as a prophet that has the capability to cure the sick with powers from God. Deep down Eli knows he fabricated his own story and really isn’t any more special than the people in his church with him. His real intention for his act is to gain enough people to become the biggest church in the area. His real motivation is not religion but a greater social status and be praised like a God himself. From the beginning to the end of the film Eli is seen asking for money for his church. Rather than pray or do something appropriate for a preacher he begs a man who doesn’t believe in God but is wealthy from working. Eli’s inner frustration becomes the best of him after realizing the money that he asked for was nowhere enough for his church. After running into this dilemma, instead of realizing his mistake he blames it on his father Abel and begins to physically and verbally attack him. A real man of God wouldn’t fuss over money to the extent of hurting his own father. Eli takes advantage of having the impression of being a preacher to get revenge on Daniel for beating him up in a scene earlier in the film. Eli gives Daniel on of the most abnormal baptisms where he accuses Daniel of false claims and makes him say very personal issues while slapping him repetitively. Eli’s pettiness reaches its limits when he is convinced to denounce God just for money that he never received. Eli’s greed …show more content…
is seen as a kid who wants to be known and have people believe that he is important and his existence must be known and spread to others. If Daniel doesn’t come first than its his business.
Through the entire film Daniel is seen by an oil well or going somewhere to discuss where he can build his next one. Daniel is a very dedicated man to his work and does not let anything get in the way between that. At the start of the film he suffers from a serious injury that temporarily stops his ability to walk or stand. Even though Daniel cannot walk, he manages to force his way through dirt to reach a merchant that buys his silver. What motivated him to make such a dangerous trip was the thought of how much money he can get for a silver rock. This motivation continues to blind him of other very important matters in his life other than the money making machines that he spends all of his surrounded by. Once Daniel decided to keep H.W. to himself he has chosen to be responsible of H.W. But it seems to be nowhere as important to the well when it erupts in flames. Daniel leaves his child who has just lost his hearing for an oil well that has a great potential of brining in plenty of money in Daniels wallet. The entire film Daniel’s immediate family is nowhere to be seen. He is aware that he has living relatives but does not have any intention of reaching out to his family even though he has enough money to do so. Daniels motivation is to keep all of the money from the well to himself and not share it with anyone else. Daniel’s misanthrope attitude makes it so he does not associate with a lot of
people. Both characters are motivated by the greed of being the best at what they do. Daniel wants to be the most successful oil man, while Eli wants to have the largest church in the area. These characters do not feel comfortable at any stand point and feel the need to progress in what they are a part of. Their sense of greed over comes themselves and manipulates their minds into believing that more money is what they need to achieve. Eli is the pettier of the two as he continues to ask and complain about others at fault for his lack of money. On the other hand, Daniel works for his money but has his priorities mixed to where he puts his money and his dignity before anything else. After felt insulted by the company who wanted to buy his well he chose to build a pipeline instead of get money for the well and avoid the trouble. Although both characters seemed to have some sort of hate for each other. It seemed to be because of the fact that they were somewhat similar to each other.
Before Elie’s hometown got invaded, he was extremely religious. He used to pray and feel the presence of God all around him causing him to shed tears of joy and even began
He had strong faith in God but yet as the story goes on, the camp starts to affect him and slowly loses faith. At the beginning, Elie is really close to God and expresses his faith greatly. “ By day i studied Talmud and by night I would run to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the temple.” (4). He studied the Talmud, which is the study of Jewish faith, everyday when he wasn’t in the camp, and he wept over the destruction of the temple. He wouldn’t have cared for any of this if he didn't have strong faith and believe in God. Now as the story progresses, that slowly begins to change. “ Blessed be God's name? Why, but why would i bless him? Every fiber in my body rebelled.” (67). Elie couldn’t find a reason to. He thought, why would a God let something so horrible happen to all the Jews. He couldn’t apprehend it therefore he questioned his faith in
Used in great magnitude throughout the novel, the inevitably important element of foreshadowing is used skillfully by the author to arouse a thought-provoking uncertainty within the reader. Foreshadowing, as presented in Gathering Blue, invigorates deep interest within the reader through ominous occurrences that only provide a slight hint of intimidating future events or betrayals that have potential to bring doom and misery. For only a slight hint is provided, the reader has considerable freedom to imagine what doom lays ahead, resulting in a gradual intensification of the novel’s suspense. The author writes, “Now she was all alone. Kira felt the aloneness, the uncertainty, and a great sadness.” (p.4), “Suddenly Kira realized with horror what the sound was. But now there was only silence.” (p.121), “He lowered the robe then, and she saw nothing more. Perhaps,
But turns down his relationship with his father over time when he gets hurt or starts to suffer. Like when Elies thought was, “I did not move. What had happened to me? My father had just been struck, before my very eyes, and I had not flickered an eyelid. I had looked on and said nothing”. When his father was hit by the guard he didn’t know what to do and just stayed silent.
For example, in one of the cattle car rides in between camps, workers were throwing pieces of bread into the karts for amusement. The consequence of this is that the Jews began fighting each other for the few crumbs. This effect one elder jew to sneak into the fighting to snatch a two pieces one for him and one for his son, however he is attacked and killed by his own son for the food and is only a few seconds after that killed by onlookers for the food. The results in Elie promising to himself to never be like that and to take care of his father, however he later on when his father gets sick he thinks it better if he were to die so he can focus on his own survival. He then feels ashamed for thinking so and those are some of the last thoughts he has about his father before his dismissal and is affected even greatly because of
Eliezer was a strict Jew who practiced religion and observed all Jewish holidays. As a child he was very devoted and focused all his energy to study Judaism. He grew up loving God with the belief that God is more powerful than anything else in this universe. He believed that with all the power God has, he is capable to put an end to all this awful suffering. Living and witnessing all this misery and have God not do anything about it makes him questions God.
Elie seems to lose faith in God. “"Yisgadal, veyiskadash, shmey raba…May His name be celebrated and sanctified…" whispered my father. For the first time, I felt anger rising within me. Why should I sanctify His name? The Almighty, the eternal and terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent. What was there to thank Him for?” (33) The God Elie once prayed and cried out to before was allowing his people to die in horrible ways. God, a being who is supposed to be loving and merciful was allowing them to die alongside millions of other
Elie, having been through so much, has already lost his faith in God. Being treated like cattle every day, seeing hundreds killed and burned in the “chimneys,” and even watching live babies thrown into pits of fire was enough for him to lose his faith, something he had once adored so much. A pivotal moment in the story is the passing of a young boy. When inmates were suspected of breaking the rules or attempting to start an uprising, they were tortured for information and then sentenced to hang at the gallows. During the scene, one of the accused is a thirteen-year-old boy who was described as having the face of an angel.
Elie's genuine belief in God helps him before being sent away to the concentration camps. On an average day-to-day basis, Elie "studied Talmud and by night ...would run to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the Temple" (p.3). He is committed to his studies of Jewish mysticism and from this, is passionate about religion and God Himself. By embedding his life into God and religion, Elie puts his sense of comfort and security into Him, as well as his complete faith. Elie's faith in God is ...
At the beginning of the book, Eliezer was in the higher levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. This hierarchy starts at the bottom with physiological needs, and progresses upwards with safety needs, belonging and love, esteem, and finally self-actualization. Eliezer was working with his love and belonging needs with respect to his religion. He was obsessed with the Jewish scripture. He wanted to learn. He was an extremely intellectual teenager. He would study the Jewish scripture with Moche the Beadle. "We would read together, ten times over, the same page of the Zohar. Not to learn it by hear, but to extract the divine essence from it." His views on the divinity of God do not endure through the Holocaust and the concentration camps.
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 sends him to the floor.
Eliezer loses faith in god. He struggles physically and mentally for life and no longer believes there is a god. "Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my god and my soul and turned my dreams to dust..."(pg 32). Elie worked hard to save himself and asks god many times to help him and take him out of his misery. "Why should I bless his name? The eternal, lord of the universe, the all-powerful and terrible was silent..."(pg 31). Eliezer is confused, because he does not know why the Germans would kill his face, and does not know why god could let such a thing happen. "I did not deny god's existence, but I doubted his absolute justice..."(pg 42). These conditions gave him confidence, and courage to live.
Towards the beginning of the book, before his experience in the concentration camps, Eliezer’s thoughts and personality is paved out quite well. Elie was incredibly religious and faithful. In section one, page 3, you can
He could not believe that the God he followed tolerated such things. During times of sorrow, when everyone was praying and sanctifying His name, Elie no longer wanted to praise the Lord; he was at the point of giving up. The fact that the “Terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent”(33) caused Elie to lose hope and faith. When one chooses to keep silent about such inhumanity going on, they are just as destructive as the one causing the brutality.... ...
This new behavior lead him to develop new character traits. While Ellie was in the concentration camp he became angry at many things, for example “I would have dug my nails into the criminals flesh” (Wisel 39). Elie shows extreme anger when the Nazi officials are beating Elie’s father. Elie was angry because the Nazi soldiers were not treating them nicely and putting them in poor conditions. Elie is usually not a person for anger but he shows this when his family members are being hurt. Elie wants to stand up for what is right and for his family members. Despite his studying, Elie wavered in his belief in Kabbalah while he was at the camp. In the book Elie says, “‘Where are You, my God?’” (66). Elie is wondering why God is not helping the Jews. Elie had complete faith in his religion until now, when he is starting to question his beliefs. He had learned that God will punish evil and save the righteous. However, when Elie saw that God was not helping the Jews situation then asked himself the question, “Is God real?”. Elie became worried because he felt he had lost a companion that always seemed by his side at all times. He lost hope. While Elie was in the camp he had changed the way he acted towards his Dad. Before Elie was sent to the camp Elie had a love hate relationship with his dad. However while they were in the camp together they became closer. Elie showed this when, “I tightened my grip on my