Oskar Schindler Character Analysis Essay

Oskar Schindler starts out as a flawed man who wants to make money and enjoy the luxuries “of high living” (Ebert 1993) and has little regard for human life besides his own. He He goes through many different, important events that all change him subtly. After World War II ends he becomes a hero to the world, especially to the Jewish people who are called “Schindler’s Jews,” the Jews whom he first uses for his own selfish purposes. Oskar Schindler helps to save over one thousand Jewish people through his selfless acts by the end of the war. Through numerous forces of change, Oskar Schindler turns from a greedy, egotistic, apathetic man, into a benevolent, unselfish, compassionate one. Initially, Oskar Schindler’s goal is to make as much money as possible and so he ignores all of the suffering of the Jewish people that was present in Krakow, Poland in order to maintain that goal. After Schindler obtains a business plan, he imagines all the great things that will happen and, he tells his wife “[They will say he] left with a steamer trunk, two steamer trunks, full of money” (Spielberg). When Schindler says this, he reveals himself as a greedy man who desires to drain the most amount of money out of the war as possible. Schindler “is happy to hire Jews because their wages are lower,” (Ebert 1993) and he will obtain “all the

In the beginning of World War II, Oskar Schindler is a selfish and cold man. By the end of the war, Schindler has become a “selfless hero” (Maslin) to the Jewish population and the rest of the world. He begins his journey simply trying to earn money for himself and ends up saving hundreds of lives at the possible expense of his own. By experiencing the war first hand, Oskar Schindler transforms himself from a shallow, “casual profiteer,” (Maslin) into a great man who ends up saving over one thousand