How Huge the Night Throughout the novel, How Huge the Night, each character faces their own personal struggles with God. Our spiritual battles can bring enlightening experiences, as well as eye-opening realizations. They spark a need for change and can motivate us to do good, though it’s not always easy to listen to our conscience. It’s hard to have faith during times of distress, especially if your life is on the line. When it’s life or death, we aren't usually thinking of anyone but ourselves. We give up on loving our enemies. We even lose hope that change will ever come. However, God uses opportunities like these to test our faith and potentially make our relationship with him stronger. When the world around us is overridden with sin, God assures us that even in the darkest times His light will guide us through.. Wars are a devastating time for everyone, and WWII was a big test of faith in a lot of households. Julien’s mother, Maria, was the only one that had previous experiences with the destruction that war brought. No matter how much they had prayed, death and sorrow still came to their family. Ever since that traumatic time, his mother has always had trouble with promises. When Julien looks back at how God let people just die, he finds himself doubting if there is such a thing as God. In the past, he had romanticized war to be a glorious battle of honour and bravery. Now he sees that death is inevitable, and suffering comes with it. Despite all the torture in the world, God uses symbols like sunrises and warm food to remind Julien that he’s still keeping them safe. In Nina and Gustav’s story, they were in constant fear of the world around them. For Nina, being both Jewish and a girl meant that she would never be safe i... ... middle of paper ... ... grow. Though God she can learn to love again. With the help of friends, she can establish trust. Praying to God brings life back into her eyes, and over time she can learn to forgive the world as well as the people that have wronged her. God leads us through many battles, but without faith we would be lost. It gives us strength to live on, despite the wickedness of the world. Those that have outlived wars and their destruction will most likely have a noticeably strong connection with God. Juien’s grandfather was full of godly wisdom, as well as strong faith built up from past experiences. [grandfather quote]. God sometimes allows us to go through certain experiences so that they strengthen us and we can share them with others in the future. They provide strength for others and proof that good outcomes can come from bad situations. [‘God’s city won’t fall’ quote].
Elli talks about daily life in her neighborhood. Her mother does not show any compassion for her. When Elli complains of this, her mother brings up excuses that are unconvincing. Elli believes her mother does not care for her and that her brother is the favorite. Hilter’s reoccurring radio broadcast give nightmares to Elli, whos family is Jewish. The nights when the Hungarian military police would come and stir trouble did not provide anymore comfort for Elli. One night, her brother, Bubi, comes home with news that Germany invaded Budapest, the town where he goes to school. But the next morning, there is no news in the headlines. The father sends him back to school. He learns the next day that a neighbor’s son who goes to school with Bubi has said the same. The day after, the newspapers scream the news of the invasion. Bubi arrives home, and the terror begins.
Elizabeth Fernea entered El Nahra, Iraq as an innocent bystander. However, through her stay in the small Muslim village, she gained cultural insight to be passed on about not only El Nahra, but all foreign culture. As Fernea entered the village, she was viewed with a critical eye, ?It seemed to me that many times the women were talking about me, and not in a particularly friendly manner'; (70). The women of El Nahra could not understand why she was not with her entire family, and just her husband Bob. The women did not recognize her American lifestyle as proper. Conversely, BJ, as named by the village, and Bob did not view the El Nahra lifestyle as particularly proper either. They were viewing each other through their own cultural lenses. However, through their constant interaction, both sides began to recognize some benefits each culture possessed. It takes time, immersed in a particular community to understand the cultural ethos and eventually the community as a whole. Through Elizabeth Fernea?s ethnography on Iraq?s El Nahra village, we learn that all cultures have unique and equally important aspects.
Imagine being trapped in a ghetto, seeing communities leaving in trains, families being split up, never to see each other again.. The emotions that each and every Holocaust survivor must’ve gone through is overwhelming. Some things that are taken for granted, will never be seen again. While reading the two texts, Night by Elie Wiesel and “I Never Saw Another Butterfly” by Pavel Friedman, The two predominant emotions that prevailed most to Holocaust victims and survivors were hope and fear.
The human experience is what connects people to one another. What we experience defines who we are and who we become. It also defines how we interact with others. The amazing thing is that not only do the events that bring joy, peace and happiness connect us but also those that bring anxiety, fear and despair. This brings to light the fact that God somehow in his sovereignty uses all things for the good of those who love Him. These ideas are brought to light in Jerry Sittser’s book, A Grace Disguised which is his personal journey of loss and the insight and experience that was gained in the face of great tragedy. In his book, Sittser discusses various insights he has gained, such as how Christian’s view sorrow, how families recover when someone they love develops a mental disorder, and the Christian view on suffering and forgiveness. I believe that the author has written a book that has many universal truths that can be applied to anyone’s life and they have the ability to bring healing to many. His ideas can also aid professionals who work with the mentally ill in becoming more compassionate.
The book Picking Cotton, the Bible, the film Conviction, and many gospel songs are given great ideas from people who overcame obstacles of faith. Obstacles can be anything that stands in our way of reaching our goals, having prosperity, or being what God want us to be. Great faith endures great tribulations, each day comes with it is quota of struggles and difficulties and every minute victory becomes seed to grow our faith. Whether we are physically contacted by sickness, death, divorce, or unemployment we require grace to endure. But during endeavoring times we learn who we authentically are and more importantly, we learn about God‘s faithfulness.
In The Jewish Women of Ravenbrück Concentration Camp the author, Rochelle Saidel discusses how gender plays a large role in the identity of the camp survivors, along with how
“Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed…“(Wiesel 32) Livia-Bitton Jackson wrote a novel based on her personal experience, I Have Lived a Thousand Years. Elli was a Holocaust victim and her only companion was her mother. Together they fought for hunger, mistreatment and more. By examining the themes carefully, the audience could comprehend how the author had a purpose when she wrote this novel. In addition, by seeing each theme, the audience could see what the author was attacking, and why. By illustrating a sense of the plight of millions of Holocaust victims, Livia-Bitton Jackson explores the powerful themes of one’s will to survive, faith, and racism.
Beryl Markham’s West with the Night is a collection of anecdotes surrounding her early life growing up as a white girl in British imperialist Africa, leading up to and through her flight across the Atlantic Ocean from East to West, which made her the first woman to do so successfully. Throughout this memoir, Markham exhibits an ache for discovery, travel, and challenge. She never stays in one place for very long and cannot bear the boredom of a stagnant lifestyle. One of the most iconic statements that Beryl Markham makes in West with the Night is:
In the post-apocalyptic novel, The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, a man and his son travel south through the ruins and ash of their demolished home. Crippled by fear, starvation, and loneliness, the man and his son struggle to maintain physical, mental, and emotion health. Throughout the novel, the characters remain unnamed, with little description of their physical appearance. The man shares all of his beliefs, memories, qualms, and feelings through his thoughts and conversations with the boy. The man has many compelling convictions referencing The Holy Bible and his unwavering belief in God. However, these accounts often contradict each other. Throughout the novel, the existence of God is indefinite. The ambiguity of the novel relates to the ambiguity of God’s existence; the characters are left in the dark about what is to come throughout their journey, just as they are left to wonder whether God’s light is illuminated or diminished among the wreckage of their forgotten world.
“NightFather, by Carl Friedman, is a book about an insane father / holocaust survivor, who tells his children gruesome survivor stories of his of his past” (“Nightfather101-Main Idea”). His children believe that t...
For those who survived the unimaginable experiences from concentration camps have come out with extraordinary stories to tell. These survivors share their stories through abundant amounts of literature ranging from diaries, novels, and documentaries. Their testimonies allow us to know the truth and what really occurred behind closed doors; history was developed. The book called The Survivor by Terrence Des Pres describes stories of what men and women had to endure while being held in a Nazi concentration camp. The world to which “survivors speak is very much a part of their condition as witnesses. They speak for someone, but also to someone, and the response the evoke is integral to the act they perform” (Pres 41). Holocaust survivor Viktor E. Frankl describes a time where he would be laying in his bunk while overhearing another prisoner having a nightmare but wouldn’t wake them up because “he knew that no matter how bad the dream might be, the reality was worse” (75).
A lot of consideration was put into this novels appropriateness for children; it was thought parents might have to explain the Holocaust; however it was decide...
her life has been ruined due to one mistake and how she has become an
Alice Friedmann was born on October 20, 1919. The Holocaust hadn’t affected her town and life until around 1938, when she was 19. The Germans were closing the borders of Czechoslovakia. Transports vehicles were emerging out of nowhere, taking friends and family members from everyone. This sent the city into a panic. One day, in 1941, Alice Friedmann, who was twenty-two years old at the time, had just gotten notice that her younger brother, who was now also a young man, was leaving on the next transport vehicle to somewhere unknown. Not a single person knew where the trucks were headed on the transports. Alice, her brother, and the rest of their family cherished their time together, knowing that her brother would soon leave. Finally, it was time for her brother to leave. Alice was walking with her brother to say her goodbyes at a transport assembly station in Prague. Her heart
The holocaust is a horrible tragedy that occurred during World War two, when the Nazi’s persecuted the Jews throughout Europe. The poem ‘Refugee Blues’ and the extract ‘The Last Night’ are both about the recrimination and persecutions of Jewish people. They are both about facing cruelty and prejudice however the writers portray this in different ways. They both show us that the death of Jewish people is inevitable. In my essay I will show how persecution and suffering is conveyed.