When the Holocaust is featured in literature, survival, interpersonal interactions, and resourcefulness of main characters is often shown. In Maus I and Maus II, Art Spiegelman utilizes the graphic novel format to tell the story of Vladek Spiegelman’s application of bilingual, bartering, and salesmanship skills to survive the tragic lifestyle of camps in the Holocaust. In contrast, in the memoir, Night, by Elie Wiesel, Elie portrays his family’s manipulation of lack of faith, prior knowledge of basic first aide, and sale of Elie’s golden-crowned tooth to persevere through the suffering faced during the Holocaust. At the same time, Spiegelman’s stories Maus I and Maus II and Wiesel’s novel Night show the importance of interpersonal interactions and the struggle to survive through the eyes of Jews living during the Holocaust, the differences in how they employ their resources and how they remain alive cause an obvious divergence between the novels. Throughout Maus I, Maus II, and Night, the characters find human assets to persevere, which helps to keep Vladek, Anja, Chlomo, and Elie alive. In Maus I and Maus II, a family member and fellow Jew, Miloch, helps Vladek by showing him a hiding spot behind a pile of shoes. Vladek and Anja stay out of the camps so long because of this hide-out. Correspondingly, Vladek and Anja meet an old lady in the black market who lets them buy food and supplies without coupons. “‘Wanna buy some food without coupons, mister?’... She showed to me sausages, eggs, cheese...things I only was able to dream about.” (Maus I 138) Likewise, in Night, Chlomo has resources within his community to arrange something with a Hungarian police officer. “Before we went into the ghetto, he had said to us: ‘Don... ... middle of paper ... ...ood drives every decision in Elie’s life in Night. Despite their increasingly shrinking waistlines, the devout of faith spent the Jewish New Year fasting. Elie and his father, on the other hand, broke their faith by “feasting” on their daily allotted soup and coffee. This extra energy easily became the difference between life and death for both Elie and his father. Another physical asset Elie takes advantage of is his golden-crowned tooth, which he saves. “I had saved my gold crown. It might be useful to me one day to buy something--bread or life.” (Night 50) Elie’s resourcefulness strikes again when he injured himself to the point of hardly being able to walk. Once out of the hospital, he found a cloth to wrap around his foot, which recently underwent surgery. He finds the strength to complete the march out of Auschwitz, eventually leading to his salvation.
It is interesting to read the connections of Night, by Elie Wiesel because they include the experiences of the Holocaust from other people's’ points of views. In A Spring Morning, by Ida Fink, it is shocking that the innocence has been stripped away from the child as the speaker reveals, “Fire years old! The age for teddy bears and blocks” (Wiesel 129). This child is born innocent, she has not harmed anyone, yet she has to suffer. Reading about the Holocaust is difficult, I wonder how others had the motivation to live during it. The description of a little girl getting shot is heartbreaking as the speaker explains, “At the edge of the sidewalk lay a small, bloody rag…. He [Aron] had to keep on walking, carrying his dead child” (Wiesel 133).
“Here, you must work. If you don’t you will go straight to the chimney. To the crematorium. Work or crematorium--the choice is yours.” (38-39) Elie chose not to die and to not give up. He had to work to stay alive. Elie worked so hard his foot became numb from the snow and was sent to the infirmary. He has an operation on his foot that would help in the long run working in the concentration camp. “Two days after my operation, rumors swept through the camp that the battlefront had suddenly drawn nearer. The Red Army was racing toward Buna; it was only a matter of hours.” (80) When Elie heard the news that he could be relieved. He made the choice to leave, later finding out the infirmary was liberated. Returning to the block, his foot reopened and was bleeding, the snow under his foot was turning red.
Six million Jews died during World War II by the Nazi army under Hitler who wanted to exterminate all Jews. In Night, Elie Wiesel, the author, recalls his horrifying journey through Auschwitz in the concentration camp. This memoir is based off of Elie’s first-hand experience in the camp as a fifteen year old boy from Sighet survives and lives to tell his story. The theme of this memoir is man's inhumanity to man. The cruel events that occurred to Elie and others during the Holocaust turned families and others against each other as they struggled to survive Hitler's and the Nazi Army’s inhumane treatment.
Although many people, when looking back at the Holocaust, immediately think of the Nazis terrorizing the Jews, what some people do not realize is that there may have been other factors that influenced this atrocity, which stripped the Jews of their basic human needs, their families, and their faith. Several survivors narrate just these things when asked to recount their time during the Holocaust, but many never really talk about the ambience being felt. However, one survivor focuses on this very fact. Written by Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel, Night recounts his time spent from before the concentration camps up to the time when he was liberated by the Americans. This memoir, which is depressing at best and disheartening at worst, may not seem particularly exciting to read, but it will certainly not be forgotten anytime soon. This fact can be supported by the book’s very title, Night. Even before reading, night implies darkness, hatred and doom, as well as other negative ideas associated with the
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 ...
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.
...e has to deal with the death of his family, the death of his innocence, and the death of his God at the very young age of fifteen. He retells the horrors of the concentration camp, of starvation, beatings, torture, illness, and hard labor. He comes to question how God could let this happen and to redefine the existence of God in the concentration camp. This book is also filled with acts of kindness and compassion amid the degradation and violence. It seems that for every act of violence that is committed, Elie counteracts with some act of compassion. Night is a reflection on goodness and evil, on responsibility to family and community, on the struggle to forge identity and to maintain faith. It shows one boy's transformation from spiritual idealism to spiritual death via his journey through the Nazi's failed attempt to conquer and erase a people and their faith.
The theme of Night is resilience. To be resilient is to be strong and able to bounce back when things happen. Elie shows resilience many times throughout the course of Night, and some of these times included when Elie and his block are being forced to run to the new camp, when somebody attempts to kill him and when he loses his father to sickness. When Elie is with the group of people running to the new camp, he knows that he needs to persevere and be resilient, even when the person that he is talking to gives up (Wiesel 86). Elie tries to tell somebody that they need to keep going, and that it will not be much longer, but when they give up, Elie does not seem to pity the boy, and he stays strong. Somebody also attempted to strangle Elie while
The best teachers have the capabilities to teach from first hand experience. In his memoir, Night, Elie Wiesel conveys his grueling childhood experiences of survival to an audience that would otherwise be left unknown to the full terrors of the Holocaust. Night discloses mental and physical torture of the concentration camps; this harsh treatment forced Elie to survive rather than live. His expert use of literary devices allowed Wiesel to grasp readers by the hand and theatrically display to what extent the stress of survival can change an individual’s morals. Through foreshadowing, symbolism, and repetition, Wiesel’s tale proves that the innate dark quality of survival can take over an individual.
In most literature, the main protagonist often endures circumstances that spark mental, social, and physical changes and may cause unfathomable and permanent transformations. This is especially prevalent in Night, a memoir written by Elie Wiesel that depicts the hidden truth of life during the Holocaust. Wiesel discusses his life as a young adult in concentration camps and his experience with anti-semitism. Throughout the memoir, Elie Wiesel undergoes several dramatic changes, which are his loss of faith, his changing relationship with his father, and his loss of humanity; all of these changes relate back to different themes in this work of literature.
In Night, it is discovered that atrocities and cruel treatment can make decent people into brutes. Elie himself also shows signs of becoming a brute for his survival, but escapes this fate, which is shown through his interactions with his father. Firstly, Elie’s moral side, overcoming the temptation to be a brute, is shown through his love for his father. However, despite these thoughts, he still decided to support his father, which helps him detour away from the path to being a brute.
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.
In Elie Wiesel’s Night, he recounts his horrifying experiences as a Jewish boy under Nazi control. His words are strong and his message clear. Wiesel uses themes such as hunger and death to vividly display his days during World War II. Wiesel’s main purpose is to describe to the reader the horrifying scenes and feelings he suffered through as a repressed Jew. His tone and diction are powerful for this subject and envelope the reader. Young readers today find the actions of Nazis almost unimaginable. This book more than sufficiently portrays the era in the words of a victim himself.
“I'm not talking about YOUR book now, but look at how many books have already been written about the Holocaust. What's the point? People haven't changed... Maybe they need a newer, bigger Holocaust.” These words were spoken by author Art Spielgelman. Many books have been written about the Holocaust; however, only one book comically describes the non-superficial characteristics of it. Art Spiegelman authors a graphic novel titled Maus, a book surrounding the life a Jewish man living in Poland, named Vladek. His son, Art Spielgelman, was primarily focused on writing a book based on his father’s experiences during the Holocaust. While this was his main focus, his book includes unique personal experiences, those of which are not commonly described in other Holocaust books. Art’s book includes the troubles his mother, Anja, and his father, Vladek, conquered during their marriage and with their family; also, how his parents tried to avoid their children being victimized through the troubles. The book includes other main characters, such as: Richieu Spiegelman, Vladek first son; Mala Spiegelman, Vladek second wife; and Françoise, Art’s French wife. Being that this is a graphic novel, it expresses the most significant background of the story. The most significant aspect about the book is how the characters are dehumanized as animals. The Jewish people were portrayed as mice, the Polish as pigs, the Germans (Nazis in particular) as cats, and Americans as dogs. There are many possible reasons why Spiegelman uses animals instead of humans. Spiegelman uses cats, dogs, and mice to express visual interests in relative relationships and common stereotypes among Jews, Germans, and Americans.
Spiegelman pours his heart and soul into this book to try and tell his fathers story of suffering as well, as his own. The difficulties of being a second-generation Holocaust survivor are shown as him and his father sometimes struggle to mesh and understand each other. Spiegelman succeeds in writing a stark semi-personal account of the tragedy of the