Twilight By Elie Wiesel: A Literary Analysis

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The relationship between madness and prophecy has long been a source of contention in literary circles. These two concepts are difficult to tackle as both are connected to an abstract mystical world that can give shape and meaning to human existence and truth about life. After the Holocaust, people seriously began questioning the existence of a Supreme Deity and the lack of divine intervention to such devastating and cruel war. As a result, the concepts of prophecy and madness are intertwined in several Holocaust stories. Such complexities lead naturally to the question of how to differentiate between the two concepts, a question that continues to perplex specialists. In the novel Twilight (1988) by Elie Wiesel, the protagonist Raphael, a professor of mysticism, embarks on a quest to discover the relationship between madness and prophecy. This paper uses Wiesel’s Twilight as a focal point to examine the concepts of madness and prophecy from historical, literary, and philosophical perspectives. The paper also explores the relationship between a madman and a prophet. In Twilight, Raphael takes a scholarly adventure to the Mountain Clinic to …show more content…

Elie started to learn French at school and fell in love with the language of literature and freedom. In Paris, he worked as a journalist until 1956 when he decided to emigrate to the United States. He settled in New York, staying there for the rest of his life, and continued his life career as a writer, publishing in French his first autobiographical book, La Nuit (Night), to document his experience during the Holocaust and make it accessible to people around the world. Francois Mauriac, a great French writer, had encouraged Wiesel “to break his own self-imposed, ten-year silence after his release from Auschwitz” (Fisher 111). In 1969, Elie married Marion Rose, who later translated most of his books in

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