Similarities Between Schindler's List And The Book Night

Both the movie Schindler's List and the book Night may both take place in the holocaust,

yet they have a much different story then you could imagine. Within the movie Schindler’s List (directed by, Steven Spielberg) it shows the perspective of a German businessman who tries to make use of the holocaust to make money. On the hand the book Night (written by, Elie Wiesel) tells the perspective of a young religious Jewish boy who slowly loses everything to the holocaust. The contrast between these two stories are important because the differences help make part of a whole story for the holocaust. These differences are shown from how the protagonists change throughout the story, their personality, and finally what their different perspectives of

the holocaust were.

The ways Elie and Schindler change go in completely opposite directions.

While Elie starts off as a young innocent religious boy, as opposed to Schindler, starting off as a greedy businessman. In the end Elie changes into a tough young adult who doubts his religion and Schindler becomes a altruistic person giving all he owned to save as many Jews as he could. Elie’s biggest change probably happened when his father died at the end of the book, while on the other hand Schindler’s biggest change happened while he was holding the ashes of the Jews. This made Schindler realize how valuable life really was changing him into the selfless person he became. Yet Elie’s changing point didn’t give him a choice to value any life besides his own, in a way he gave up on his father’s

life.

To talk about the personalities of the two protagonists you have to keep in mind that their personalities changed over time in the stories. In the beginning of Night Elie is more of a introvert, who would rather study his religion rather then playing with other kids. Elie was mainly a really faithful kid, that was already thinking about devoting himself to his religion to be closer to his God. However Schindler has a charismatic personality that he keeps throughout the whole story, although he uses this personality in two very different ways. At the start of the movie Schindler uses this personality for his own selfish and greedy desire, money! Yet in end Schindler uses it not for greed, but for buying as many Jews as he possibly could from the Nazies. Going back to Elie, you can tell that throughout the book his personality drastically changes into a doubtful person. In a way Elie practically ends up doubting everything he was living for before the holocaust started, doubting his way of life.

Now finally the perspectives of the protagonists.

The obvious difference between the two protagonists perspectives is that one was living through the holocaust and the other was watching it. In the perspective of Schindler he didn’t have a care in the world except trying to make money from the holocaust. Schindler wouldn’t get criticized for what race he was, the religion he followed, or what he looked like. While on the other hand Elie gets treated like he’s not even a human being. Elie has to always fear for his life because at any moment he could get murdered for no reason at all. Though it is interesting to be able to see both perspectives of the German and Jews because your able to see multiple sides of the same story. For example in the Jews perspective the Germans seem like nothing, but pure evil. Yet in the Germans perspective your able to see more than just Nazies. You can see that to them it’s just another day on the job. These examples are why I think the contrast in perspectives are

important.

To summarize it all together these differences help show more of a bigger picture of what the holocaust was like. Telling us why these differences are important to make the whole story. From just telling us the differences of how they changed over time, their personalities, and finally the different perspectives they took on during the holocaust. In the end the importance of these differences help make a part of a bigger story called the holocaust.