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To kill a mockingbird examples of symbolism
To kill a mockingbird examples of symbolism
To kill a mockingbird examples of symbolism
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In the poem, “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost, the author describes a time when he has to choose between two different trails. He is going for a walk in a forest in the fall. He comes to a fork in the road and must decide which path to take. Frost is using this metaphor to illustrate the consequences that may appear when one makes a decision. One of the trails is well traveled while the other is not used. The speaker decides to take the trail less traveled. Because of this decision, the speaker laments in line 16: “I shall be telling this with a sigh.”
The meaning of Frost’s poem is similar to the book Night by Elie Wiesel. In both situations, the characters are tested to make a decision and accept the consequences that may develop. Elie
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Wiesel and his family live in Sighet, Transylvania, Hungary. The Hungarian police have come to Sighet and are now enforcing new rules on the Jewish people and isolating them from the rest of the city. Elie’s father had at least three opportunities to leave Sighet before the Nazis sent them to Auschwitz. First, Moishe the Beadle attempts to warn the people of Sighet of the great horrors that await them. He tries to explain what the German Nazis are doing to the Jewish people. Elie’s father and the other people choose to believe that Moishe has just gone mad and is just longing for pity. Also, Elie asks his father to leave Sighet for Palestine. In this time people were still able to buy emigration certificates. Elie’s father claims that he is too old to move unexpectedly. Lastly, Maria, the Wiesel's former maid, offers them a safe shelter to stay in while the deportations are happening. Elie’s father refuses and wants to stay with the Jewish people to uphold his position as a community leader. The first opportunity approaches the Wiesels when Moishe the Beadle warns them of the horrors that the German Nazis were committing against the Jews, “He told me what had happened to him and his companions…. Day after day, night after night, he went from one Jewish house to the next, telling his story and that of Malka, the young girl who lay dying for three days, and that of Tobie, the tailor who begged to die before his sons were killed” (6-7). Moishe the Beadle warns the Jews to get out before the Nazis come to Hungary.Instead of leaving Sighet, the people claim that Moishe wants pity and he is a madman. Moishe tries to explain to Elie that he is only trying to help the people, “‘You don’t understand’ he said in despair. ‘You cannot understand…. I succeeded in coming back…. I wanted to return to Sighet to describe to you my death so that you might ready yourselves while there is still time” (7). The people still do not believe Moishe. Another time is when Elie asks his father if they can leave Sighet for Palestine.
They can escape before deportations approach them. Elie explains, “In those days it was still possible to buy emigration certificates to Palestine. I had asked my father to sell everything, to liquidate everything, and to leave” (8-9). Elie’s father refuses and tells his son, ‘“I am too old… Too old to start a new life. Too old to start from scratch in some distant land…”’ (9). Another one of Elie’s father’s excuses cost some of the families lives. Since they did not leave Sighet, they are sent to Auschwitz where Elie’s mother and sisters …show more content…
die. Another opportunity arises when one of the Wiesel’s family friends offers them a way out of Sighet, “Maria, our former maid, came to see us.
Sobbing, she begged us to come with her to her village where she had prepared a safe shelter” (20). His father always has an excuse. He, along with many other Jews cannot believe the inhumanity the Germans are accused of committing, “And thus my elders concerned themselves with all manner of things- strategy, diplomacy, politics, and Zionism- but not with their own fate” (8). Elie’s father also uses his age as an excuse, ‘“I am too old… Too old to start a new life. Too old to start from scratch in some distant land”’(9). Finally, Elie’s father has had enough of Elie badgering him to leave. He tells him, ‘“If you wish, go there. I shall stay here with your mother and the little one…”’ (20). Because of his decision to take the road traveled most in order to protect the Jewish community, Elie and his family are deported by the end of chapter
1. Elie’s father, like the speaker in Frost’s poem, realizes that his decision causes many conflicts and the other choice may have been better. Elie’s father believes that the people must stick together and all will be fine. He soon realizes that he is wrong. When they arrive at Auschwitz they are split into groups of men and women. Elie’s family is now parted, “There was no time to think, and I already felt my father’s hand press against mine: we were alone” (29). Here Elie’s father realizes his mistake. He now knows that if he had listened to Moishe, or left for Palestine, or taken Maria’s offer, their family would not have been torn apart.
In his first account in the story, he is a young boy of 13 years, in the small town of Sighet, Transylvania; In Hungary. He is very religious and is ready to learn more about his faith. It is 1941, when some Jews are taken from Sighet. Years pass until Elie is 15 years old now; Hitler is hovering above European Jewish citizens with a iron fist. With the laws passed in Germany, the Holocaust begins, and The Germans invade foreign land in an attempt to purify the Aryan race. Germans appear in Sighet, and are polite and kind and take residence in multiple families homes. Slowly overtime Jews were labeled, then segregated into ghettos. Soon after Elie and his family learns of the transports to the labor camps. They are then transported; through this misfortune and grief, Elie loses his faith in god, and loses hope. This is where the story truly begins, in the labor camp of Birkenau. Elie and his father were stripped of all their possessions and given painful haircuts, as well as clothes equivalent by those of rags; Here the people are worked like dogs and Elie now endures the pain of the labor camps, both emotionally and physically. He loses sight of his mother and sister who are
At Birkenau in 1944, the father-son bond is greatly strengthened. It is here where the men separate from the women, and Elie’s mother and three sisters separate from Elie. Elie becomes completely dependant on his father for the first time. Elie has one thought when this separation occurs. “Not to lose him. Not to be left alone” (27). In Sighet, Elie never has this...
Elie makes very important decisions throughout his journey. Upon arriving at the concentration camp, men and women were separated into groups. By choice, Elie and his father made the choice to lie about their age. Elie was now eighteen and his father was forty.
At the beginning of the book, Elie mentioned that his father, Shlomo, was admired and respected by all the family members. Outside the family, “The Jewish community of Sighet held him in highest esteem” (Wiesel 4). Through the first few days in the concentration camps, Elie had relied on his father’s presence and protection to get him through his daily life. He was dependent on him as evident during the initial selection when he states that “My hand ti...
At last, his father was free. He wasn't taking any more beatings, he isn't suffering, and he doesn't have to be in the concentration camps anymore. Elie is free, he doesn't have to carry the weight of his father anymore. Three months after his fathers death nothing mattered to him anymore. The father son relationship shown in this novel, is something no one else has ever seen before. As you can see the roles switch throughout the story. In the beginning Elie’s father is strong, a role model a leader, but through the story he becomes child-like vulnerable, weak. On the other hand, Elie goes from admiring his dad, to worrying and carrying for
Due to the cruel punishment Elie endures from the Nazi Army and other prisoners that he comes
Throughout the whole journey, Elie was lucky enough to be able to stay with her father. Through the text, one of Elie's main focuses is ensuring that his father is taken care of and no matter what happened they were to remain united. After rumors that the Russians are approaching begin to spread, the Germans begin to move the prisoners to smaller camps in the woods in order to seclude their crimes. Elie had to somehow move on with his life, a seemingly impossible task.
Elie is just a young boy whenever everything happens, and his faith in humanity is still quite strong. However, as time goes on, Elie is faced with an abundance of challenges and tasks that will test just how strong his faith is. Whenever Elie was young, he was curious about God and wanted to know more, causing him to soon meet Moshe the Beadle. Moshe was a strongly religious person and taught Elie almost everything he knew. In a way Moshe was Elie’s best friend. He lived a joyous life and loved all of the people surrounding him, until he disappeared with the Germans. All of the Jews believed that they were going to a “resort”, however, they were horifically wrong. The treatment they received from the Lagerkapo, was indescribably awful. Whenever Moshe was the only one to return and he was changed tremendously and kept screaming about how they were going to die and the Germans were going to hurt them, no one believed him and called Moshe crazy and felt pity for him. This was the first time that Elie’s faith in humanity was slightly tested. The first sign of no humanity that Elie noticed, was the first camp he was deported to, Birkenau, and saw young babies burning in a fire. Throughout the Holocaust, Elie loses all his faith that humans have potential. He believes they care more about their own survival than trying to help others. At this point, Elie has no faith in man and that the
Before Elie Wiesel and his father are deported, they do not have a significant relationship. They simply acknowledge each other’s existence and that is all. Wiesel recalls how his father rarely shows emotion while he was living in Sighet, Transylvania. When they are deported, Wiesel is not sure what to expect. He explains, “My hand shifted on my father’s arm. I had one thought-not to lose him. Not to be left alone” (Wiesel 27). Once he and his father arrive at Auschwitz, the boy who has never felt a close connection with his father abruptly realizes that he cannot lose him, no matter what. This realization is something that will impact Wiesel for the rest of his time at the camp.
..., which made him more upset because it was his own father. Also, he speaks about reaching down into his inner conscious to find out why he really was not as upset and he would have been if it were the first week in the camp. Elie believes that if he reached into his thoughts he would have come up with something like: “Free at last!...”(112).
During their journey, Elie loses his father due to illness however does not feel much emotion. After witnessing his own die, Elie “did not weep” and “deep inside me, if I could have searched the recesses of my feeble conscience, I might have found something like: Free at last!...” (Wiesel 112). While going through the camp Buna, Elie and his father had develops a strong relationship with one another. However, after his father’s death, Elie “did not weep” and displays very little towards the event. Elie had felt that his father was a liability for his own survival and did not feel the need to weep over his death. Elie also states that he was “Free at last” showing that throughout the course of the novel Elie had thought as his father as pulling him back from survival. The reason for Elie feels this way is because Elie is still on his journey and his primary goal is to survive through the camps. Elie has become quite desperate through his journey of survival and searches the “recesses of my feeble conscience” for his most inner thoughts. Throughout the novel, Elie had been storing these thoughts in the back of mind. These thoughts include him thinking of his father as liability and him being free from him. At their first arrival at the camps, Elie and his father had been very close to one another going through their journey of survival. However, after
Elie and his father are separated from Elie’s mother and little sister, never to be seen again. Elie comes face to face with the Angel of Death as he is marched to the edge of a crematory, but is put in a barracks instead. Elie’s faith briefly faltered at this moment. They are forced to strip down, but to keep their belt and shoes. They run to the barber and get their hair clipped off and any body hair shaved. Many of the Jews rejoice to see the others that have made it. Others weep for the ones lost. They then get prison clothes that were ridiculously fitted. They made exchanges and went to a new barracks in the “gypsies’ camp.” They wait in the mud for a long time. They were permitted to another barracks, with a gypsy in charge of them. They are ...
World War II is raging on, but the Jewish community that Elie and his family live in aren’t worried. Germans have moved into their town and forced the families to live in ghettos, but they still didn’t think much of it. The Germans slowly take more and more control over them, taking all of their valuables, making them wear yellow stars identifying them as Jewish. Soon after the worst news they'd received yet came. “‘The news is terrible,’ he said at last. And then one word: ‘Transports’.” (Page 13) Elie and his family spread the news they had received, alerting as many neighbors as they could before they had to go prepare to be transported. Cattle car by cattle car the Jewish families were forced into the cars. “The Hungarian Police made us climb into the cars, eighty persons in each one. They handed us some bread, a few pails of
Self-sufficiency was encouraged throughout the concentration camps, therefore Elie was forced to grow up and leave his innocence behind. Because of this self-reliance, many started to view their friends and family as a burden rather than a motivation.
Elie goes to Auschwitz at an innocent, young stage in his life. Due to his experiences at this concentration camp, he loses his faith, his bond with his father, and his innocence. Situations as horrendous as the Holocaust will drastically change people, no matter what they were like before the event, and this is evident with Elie's enormous change throughout the memoir Night.