Jane Yolen once said: “Fiction cannot recite the numbing numbers, but it can be that witness, that memory.” Preserving the memories of the horrifying incidents of the Holocaust is the best way to ensure nothing like it ever occurs again. Authors use their novels to try and pass these memories down through generations. Examples of this are the novels Night by Elie Wiesel, and MAUS by Art Spiegelman. The main discussion in these novels revolves around the Holocaust and the violence against Jews. Both have captivating stories and are worthy of recognition, but MAUS is a better novel for educating students. This is because unlike Night it discusses the familial guilt faced by the families of Holocaust survivors. In addition, MAUS gives a visual …show more content…
Because of the sheer amount of people affected by the Holocaust, it continued having an (Figure 1: Artie in the car with his wife) effect on generations to come. This is clearly displayed in MAUS, when Artie is discussing his views on the Holocaust with his wife (See Fig. 1-2). Artie is evidently guilty about (Figure 2: Artie in the car with his wife) what his parents faced in the Holocaust, saying that he feels “...so inadequate trying to reconstruct a reality that was worse than my darkest dreams” (Spiegelman, 176). This is because he personally lived a relatively easy life, in contrast to his parents. Familial guilt is essential to an educational Holocaust story, because it shows how devastating the horrors that occurred really were, and how they impacted family members of survivors for years to come. Additionally, having familial guilt teaches that events as terrorizing as the Holocaust are things that are carried along with families long after the actual actions are completed. The idea of familial guilt is an important lesson for students to learn, as it serves as a warning against the repetition of these actions. Because the novella Night occurs during the war itself, it doesn’t show the repercussions that anyone faced after the …show more content…
MAUS begins in 1936, and spans all the way until the end of the war in 1945. This means it teaches and discusses all major events revolving around the systematic German takeover. For example, it mentions things such as “It was the beginning of 1938.... here was the first time I saw, with my own eyes, the swastika.” (Spiegelman, 32) and “At the end of 1941 the Germans came up with something new....all 12 of our household were given now to live in 2 1/2 rooms” (Spiegelman, 82). These facts are both educational and help move the story along. In comparison to this, Night really only shows the last year or so of the war. This causes a great deal of the historical facts to be lost. The idea of this is touched upon with the “veterans” of the concentration camps commenting on the fact that Elie and his father haven’t been there for too long. The “veterans” say things like “Now you’ll experience a real winter.” (Wiesel, 84), referring to their notion that Elie and his father haven 't truly had a difficult time in the concentration camp yet. A story told in the point of view of one of these “veterans”, such as that of Vladek Spiegelman allows for more actual facts to be
An estimated 11 million people died in the Holocaust. 6 million were Jews. In the book Night by Elie Wiesel tells his story as a Holocaust survivor. Throughout his book he describes the tremendous obstacles he overcame, not only himself, but with his father as well. The starvation and cruel treatment did not help while he was there. Elie makes many choices that works to his advantage. Choice plays a greater factor in surviving Auschwitz.
When the Holocaust happened there were many Jews killed due to gas chambers and fires that hid their remains. The book Night is about Elie wiesel (a survivor of the Holocaust) and what had happened to him in auschwitz. Elie wiesel is an actual survivor of the holocaust who wrote this book to show the horrors of auschwitz. He was very changed after he came out of the concentration camp known as Auschwitz(the biggest concentration camp during the holocaust). In the book “Night” by Elie Wiesel, the main character, Elie, was affected 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.
A statement from the nonfiction novella Night –a personal account of Elie Wiesel’s experience during the Holocaust—reads as follows: “How could I say to Him: Blessed be Thou. Almighty, Master of the universe, who chose us among all nations to be tortured day and night, to watch as our fathers, our mothers, our brothers, end up in the furnaces” (67). War is a concept that is greatly looked down upon in most major religions and cultures, yet it has become an inevitable adversity of human nature. Due to war’s inhumane circumstances and the mass destruction it creates, it has been a major cause for many followers of Christianity, Judaism, and other religions to turn from their faith. Followers of religion cannot comprehend how their loving god could allow them to suffer and many devout
Art Spiegelman's Maus II is a book that tells more than the story of one family's struggle to live thought the Holocaust. It gives us a look into the psyche of a survivor's child and how the Holocaust affected him and many other generations of people who were never there at all. Maus II gives the reader a peek into the psyche of Art Spiegelman and the affects of having two parents that survived the Holocaust had on him. Spiegelman demonstrates the affects of being a survivor's child in many ways throughout the book. Examining some of these will give us a better understanding of what it was like to be a part of the Holocaust.
The section in the novel night that painted a dark and angry picture of human nature is when the Jews were fleeing Buna and hundreds of them were packed in a roofless cattle car. The Jews were only provided with a blanket that soon became soaked by the snowfall. They spent days in the bitter cold temperatures and all they ate was snow. For these reasons, many suffered and died. When they stopped in German towns, the people stared at that cattle cars filled with soulless bodies. “They would stop and look at [the Jews] without surprise.” It was a regular occasion for the German people to see suffering Jews and not feel pity. The dark and angry picture of human nature was when a German worker “took a piece of bread out of his bag and threw it
Many people have different explanation about the Holocaust. They have different explanations because they might have lived it in a different way. Each person may have worst moments than other people. It also depends if they don't want to talk about it because it brings them horrible memories. So many survivors have a story to tell, so many people have a point to make. But what all of them are going to say is that it was horrible that they don't want to talk and remember about it. Elie Wiesel’s Night and the book Maus reveal the following theme; Never give up even when life is tough (or when things seems hopeless). These two books talk about the horrible moments and stories that happened in the Holocaust. They have many subject in common as differences. So many people want to try to understand the horror or maybe help others to understand it better.
The Holocaust was a terrible time, where the Nazis were eliminating Jews due to a misunderstanding that was passed down from Adolf Hitler to the Germans. Hilter filled the minds of Germans with hatred against Jews. Books such as Maus and Anne Frank has been able to suppress the horror of the holocaust. Maus, by Art Spiegelman, is about Art Spiegelman’s father Vladek Spriegelman and his experiences enduring the holocaust. Anne Frank, by Ann Kramer is about Frank and her friends and family struggling to survive the holocaust, yet in the end only her dad, Otto Frank is the only survivor. The author of the book Anne...
The Holocaust is one of the most horrific and gruesome events in world history. It took a great toll on millions of lives in one way or another. One person in particular is Vladek Spiegelman, a Holocaust survivor. Maus, by Art Spiegelman, consists of two main narratives. One narrative occurs during World War II in Poland, and the other begins in the late 1970s in New York. In relation to each other these two narratives portray the past and present.Throughout the novel, we often see Art Spiegelman questioning why his father acts the way he does. Although the war is over, the events of the Holocaust continue to influence the life of Vladek. Why do we allow the past to effect the present? Vladek's personality is largely influenced by his Holocaust experience. In Maus I and II, Vladek was stubborn, selfish, and cheap because of his experiences in the Holocaust.
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.
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.
Authors sometimes refer to their past experiences to help cope with the exposure to these traumatic events. In his novel Night, Elie Wiesel recalls the devastating and horrendous events of the Holocaust, one of the world’s highest points for man’s inhumanity towards man, brutality, and cruel treatment, specifically towards the Jewish Religion. His account takes place from 1944-1945 in Germany while beginning at the height of the Holocaust and ending with the last years of World War II. The reader will discover through this novel that cruelty is exemplified all throughout Wiesel's, along with the other nine million Jews’, experiences in the inhumane concentration camps that are sometimes referred to as “death factories.”
Many different responses have occurred to readers after their perusal of this novel. Those that doubt the stories of the holocaust’s reality see Night as lies and propaganda designed to further the myth of the holocaust. Yet, for those people believing in the reality, the feelings proffered by the book are quite different. Many feel outrage at the extent of human maliciousness towards other humans. Others experience pity for the loss of family, friends, and self that is felt by the Holocaust victims.
Some of the most fabled stories of our time come from individuals overcoming impossible odds and surviving horrific situations. This is prevalent throughout the Holocaust. People are fascinated with this event in history because the survivors had to overcome immense odds. One, of many, of the more famous stories about the Holocaust is Night by Elie Wiesel. Through this medium, Wiesel still manages to capture the horrors of the camps, despite the reader already knowing the story.
The tragedies of the Holocaust forever altered history. One of the most detailed accounts of the horrific events of the Nazi regime comes from Elie Wiesel’s Night. He describes his traumatic experiences in German concentration camps, mainly Buchenwald, and engages his readers from a victim’s point of view. He bravely shares the grotesque visions that are permanently ingrained in his mind. His autobiography gives readers vivid, unforgettable, and shocking images of the past.
Elie Wiesel didn’t just tell his story, he brought everyone who read it into his experience and made them feel the terror and dread that he felt. To explain this story is to explain a nightmare, an unimaginable tale of innocent people dying for no reason. Wiesel used his experience to send a message to humans everywhere that this cannot be overlooked, that the Holocaust did happen, and that everyone needs to try and prevent it from happening again. He does this through heartbreaking imagery and diction while symbolizing what the Holocaust was for him using the word “night”. By doing this, the reader is transported to the Holocaust and taken on a dark, terrifying, and eye-opening experience they won’t soon forget.