The short story, “At the Gellert Baths,” by Esme Schwall is narrated by a man married to the daughter of a holocaust survivor. He explains the daughter’s cautious attitude derived from her parents’ fearful ways. The survivor’s daughter wishes to see Hungary with her parents, but they are very uncertain about trying new things and revisiting the past. “At the Gellert Baths,” uses the ideas of fear, uncertainty, and marriage, as well as various textual elements, to energize this short story. The ideas of fear and uncertainty are closely related, but the two have different uses to enhance this text. The first sign that the daughter’s parents are a very fearful bunch is in the first paragraph. “If you’re married to a survivor’s child, you’re …show more content…
Marriage provides a safe feeling of having a reliable friend and partner, but it is also a big uncertainty that requires commitments and variables to overcome. “ You’ll find yourself saying that she only has the rare week off from the hospital, that it would be nice to spend it alone, once in a while, just the two of you, instead of always with her parents” (Schwall 343). Variables such as constantly making the daughter’s parents a priority, hardly getting chances to spend time with his own parents, and rarely getting time alone with his wife are not what the speaker had in mind. He wants to be certain that his wife still loves and cares for him because, “her parents get the best of her- the largest reserves of her energy and endurance and thought” (Schwall 343). The speaker cares about Hungary, but cares more about planning a trip with his wife, tired of the commitment of reserving all leisure time for the daughter’s parents. He feels he has lost the part of marriage that is safe and certain; to have a reliable partner and friend who will drop everything, do anything, and take risks to spend time …show more content…
“At the Gellert Baths,” is written in first person except every place that “I” could be used, it is replaced by “you.” This seems to make the story more personal, allowing the audience to experience the speaker’s desire for risk in a world of fear dominated by the daughter and her parents. The use of the word survivor several times on nearly every page emphasizes that there is still a sense of relief and celebration after over 50 years after the holocaust, as if the wife and daughter went through this trauma with the father. This touches on the idea of marriage, that by agreeing to spend eternity with another person you are also accepting their baggage. The tone of the story precedent to and following the trip to Hungary is also significant. In the beginning of the story, the parents are hesitant of taking the trip because they do not wish to relive the fathers past and bring back holocaust memories. They speaker also has objections to the trip because he wishes to utilize the vacation time in a more personal and romantic fashion for his wife and himself. He does not believe the mother and father will ever adjust from a fearful to passive attitude. Traveling to Hungary is what eventually unites all the characters. Following the excursion, the tone shifts from fearful and allusive to pleasant and peaceful. “Before you return to the dressing room the
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).
Furthermore, in 1940 when the Germans and Hungarians took over Romania, Anna’s life began to change. The Seelfreund family was now subjected to the Hungarian government. In the first year once respected Jews were now treated with humiliation. In 1942, all the young men, including Anna’s father were sent to Hungarian Labor Service. Only the old people, the women and children were left. According to Anna after receiving only one letter from her father, he was never heard of again.
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.
It is almost unimaginable the difficulties victims of the holocaust faced in concentration camps. For starters they were abducted from their homes and shipped to concentration camps in tightly packed cattle cars. Once they made it to a camp, a selection process occurred. The males were separated from the females. Then those who were too young or too old to work were sent to the showers. Once the showers were tightly packed, the Nazi’s would turn on the water and drop in canisters of chemicals that would react with the water and release a deadly gas. Within minutes, everyone in the shower would be dead. The bodies would be hauled out and burned. Those who were not selected to die didn’t fair much better. Terrible living conditions, forced labor, malnourishment, and physical abuse were just a few of the things they had to endure. It was such a dark time. So many invaluable lessons can be learned from the holocaust and from those who survived it. One theme present in Elie Wiesel’s novel Night and Robert Benigni’s film Life is Beautiful is that family can strengthen or hinder one during adversity.
The Holocaust will forever be known as one of the largest genocides ever recorded in history. 11 million perished, and 6 million of the departed were Jewish. The concentration camps where the prisoners were held were considered to be the closest one could get to a living hell. There is no surprise that the men, women, and children there were afraid. One was considered blessed to have a family member alongside oneself. Elie Wiesel was considered to be one of those men, for he had his father working side by side with him. In the memoir Night, by Elie Wiesel, a young boy and his father were condemned to a concentration camp located in Poland. In the concentration camps, having family members along can be a great blessing, but also a burden. Elie Wiesel shows that the relationship with his father was the strength that kept the young boy alive, but was also the major weakness.
In Night, Elie Wiesel descriptively portrays the Holocaust and the experiences he has in each part of his survival. From the ghettos to the Death March and liberation, Elie Wiesel shares his story of sadness and suffering. Specifically Wiesel speaks about his short experience in the Sighet ghetto, a historically accurate recount illustrating the poor living conditions, the Judenrat and Jewish life in the ghetto as well as the design and purpose of the two Sighet ghettos. Wiesel’s description of the Sighet ghettos demonstrates the similar characteristics between the Sighet ghetto and other ghettos in Germany and in German-annexed territories.
A fifteen-year old boy, Elie Wiesel, and his family are overwhelmed by the thought of uncertainty when they are forced out of their home; as a result, the family would be forced into a cattle car and shipped to Auschwitz. At first, the Jews have a very optimistic outlook while in
The mood of Night is harder to interpret. Many different responses have occurred in 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 encounter disgust as the realization occurs that if any one opportunity had been utilized the horror could of been avoided. Those missed moments such as fleeing when first warned by Moshe the Beadle, or unblocking the window when the Hungarian officer had come to warn them, would have saved lives and pain.
A story of a young boy and his father as they are stolen from their home in Transylvania and taken through the most brutal event in human history describes the setting. This boy not only survived the tragedy, but went on to produce literature, in order to better educate society on the truth of the Holocaust. In Night, the author, Elie Wiesel, uses imagery, diction, and foreshadowing to describe and define the inhumanity he experienced during the Holocaust.
The determining concern of survival confronts both Elie and Chlomo throughout Night. The concept of survival is illustrated by the complications brought upon Elie and Chlomo. Elie and Chlomo believe they could only survive the concentration camps with one another; the father-and-son link was held together for the survival of each other. One complication in particular, was the i...
In Eliezer Wiesel’s novel “Night”, it depicts the life of a father and son going through the concentration camp of World War II. Both Eliezer and his father are taken from their home, where they would experience inhuman and harsh conditions in the camps. The harsh conditions cause Eliezer and his father’s relationship to change. During their time in the camps, Eliezer Wiesel and his father experience a reversal of their roles.
As their days were limited in Czechoslovakia, Joyce and her family left all of their belongings and fled to Budapest, where their brother lived and was planning to get married. Joyce explained that the family returned to their hometown in Czechoslovakia as thi...
Many themes exist in Night, Elie Wiesel’s nightmarish story of his Holocaust experience. From normal life in a small town to physical abuse in concentration camps, Night chronicles the journey of Wiesel’s teenage years. Neither Wiesel nor any of the Jews in Sighet could have imagined the horrors that would befall them as their lives changed under the Nazi regime. The Jews all lived peaceful, civilized lives before the German occupation. Eliezer Wiesel was concerned with mysticism and his father was “more involved with the welfare of others than with that of his own kin” (4).
Change is an unpredictable and inevitable thing. One cannot know what alteration it may bring but it can, without doubt, be expected said Hazel M, an Honor English student (par.1). Eliezer, the protagonist in Night, encounters change numerous times. One of the mainly considerable changes he comes across, while in the concentration camps, is that of his relationship with his father. Before the Holocaust, Eliezer’s relation with his father was very distant, I will say non existent.
Using lines and basic shapes to emphasize shading and detail and then teamed with such a complex theme, Art’s story and graphics join together in a complimentary marriage. With the nearly childlike drawings and the intense mature storyline, there is a message that this is being written by the child telling the story of the parent. The story emphasizes his father’s inability to grow and repair from his past but even without the words you can almost see that Art has never truly be able to move past his the trauma of growing up with his parents. Using his frustrations and the need to explore the history of his father’s idiosyncrasies, Art creates a poignant story not only about the tragedy of the holocaust, but of the realities of being a child growing up with survivor parents.