Blog Post #3 (p. 47-97)-DUE October 15, 2018
Identify an important theme that has emerged so far in the memoir. Choose 2-3 places where this theme impacts Elie’s life experiences in this story of survival. Include textual evidence (quotations) with page numbers to support your discussion of the theme. In what ways can you connect to this theme in and Elie’s experiences in your own life? Themes we've uncovered so far:
- Family
- Hope/Loss of hope
- Identity
- Luck (good & bad)
- Divide and conquer
- Faith/Loss of faith
- Another significant theme you’ve uncovered
I think an important theme in this section of the book is that every challenge Elie is faced with he can always overcome it. This is a good example of how Elie overcame so many things. “It was over. I had not realized it, but I had fainted”(Wiesel 58). On this page Elie had overseen Idek not doing his job. Idek wanted to punish Elie to make sure that he wouldn’t tell anyone so he whipped him 25 times. Another time where Elie is faced with a huge challenge is when the SS officers are doing another selection on the death march. “ The SS officers were doing the selection: the weak, to the left; those who walked well, to the left. My father was sent to the left” (Wiesel 96). Elie had to make a huge decision right here. Him and his father were going to be seperated. The first thing that came to mind was to run and get him. The SS officers were shouting but they both were able to switch over to the other lines during all of the comotion. This shows that it doesn’t matter how bad it looks he can probably overcome it and move on.
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ReplyDeleteThroughout the book, Elie has some pretty bad experiences (considering it is the Holocaust). Everything that happens to him, bad or good, sort of kept him alive. Barely. He suffered from almost everything, but stayed alive. " 'Did they write me down?' 'No,... Anyway, they couldn't have. You were running too fast..."(Wiesel 72). To me, this seems like it was pure luck. If Elie didn't run fast, would he have been written down? Another example of luck is during the part when Elie was trapped under the corpses and dying people. "I shall never know. All I can say is that I prevailed. I succeeded in digging a hole in the wall of dead and dying people, a small hole through which I could drink a little air."(Wiesel 94). In this situation, if Elie panicked and didn't think fast enough, he would have suffocated and died. I realized how lucky he really is. If he didn't take action in difficult situations, he probably wouldn't survive for too long. It is surprising that he has lasted this long. He wasn't kept at the killing camp but was sent to a working camp that had horrible conditions. At the beginning of the book, a man told Elie and his father their fate. They had to lie about their age to get sent to the working camp. If he stayed at killing camp and the man didn't tell him his fate, he would have definitely been killed.
ReplyDeleteHope plays an important role in Night because without hope Elie probably wouldn't have survived the Holocaust. There are some very hopeful parts in the book Night and other parts where Elie started to lose hope. One part that really stood out to me was “He gave an impression of kindness.” “From time to time, a smile would linger in his gray-blue eyes” (Wiesel 47). This didn’t happen very often in the concentration camps, it shows that there was hope in people having a heart and not just wanting to kill the Jews. If I were Elie I would feel hopeful as well knowing not everyone there was evil. Some parts in the book Elie started to lose hope, for example, his gold crown was removed. When this happened to him he felt like he had lost his dignity because that was the last prize possession they took away from him. “What would you like? That I break your teeth by smashing your face?” “That evening, in the latrines, the dentist from Warsaw pulled my crown with the help of a rusty spoon” (Wiesel 56). I could never imagine having someone take away my very last possession. One part that really touched me in the reading was “With all my strength I began to race toward Block 36; midway I met my father.” “He came toward me: “So? Did you pass?” “Yes. And you?” “Also” (Wiesel 73). Elie and his father both started to gain hope that they were possibly going to get out of the concentration camps alive. It is very hard for me to picture being ripped away from my family like that and potentially never seeing them again.
ReplyDeleteI agree that there were parts of the book where he had hope and parts where he was losing or lost hope. I think it was almost like a never ending battle with himself over what to believe.
DeleteAn important theme that prevails through the whole book is hope. People who lost hope or their will to live in the book often died. Without hope and his father, who gave him a reason to keep fighting, Elie might not have made through. When many people gave up hope, or lost their loved ones, they ended up dying. A lot of those who stayed strong and kept their will to live made it out alive. When most lost people they loved, they became weak, and no longer cared if they lived or died. “Next to me, someone was trying to awaken his neighbor, his brother perhaps, or his comrade. In vain. Defeated, he lay down too, next to the corpse, and also fell asleep” (Wiesel 98-99). This man gave up and fell asleep because he lost someone, and probably never woke up. Another time the theme of having hope was shown was when the prisoners were being marched towards Gleiwitz. They were all exhausted, but words of encouragement kept them going. “From time to time, SS officers on motorcycles drove the length of the column to shake off the growing apathy: “Hold on! We’re almost there!” “Courage! Just a few more hours!” “We’re arriving in Gleiwitz!” These words of encouragement, even coming as they did from the mouths of our assassins, were of great help” (Wiesel 92). Even though it was the Nazis who were encouraging the prisoners, it gave them hope and strength to keep going. While I obviously have never dealt with anything even close to as difficult as something like the Holocaust, I can relate to the theme of hope. When anyone encourages me to keep going even if something is hard, it gives me hope and a reason to keep going.
ReplyDeleteElie was only 13 and studying his religion and had faith in his God, when his family was torn out of their home and sent to the concentration camp. He was our age. Could we have gone through all the unthinkable things he and other Jews went through? Would we have still believed in God. Jewish is not just a race, it is also a religion. Many Jews had to pretend they were not Jewish to survive, like the French girl that talked to him after a beating and said “bite your lip little brother.” When he met her years later she said “Am I Jewish…? Yes, I am. (Wiesel 54) Elie lost his faith when the SS hanged the young boy. It took a half hour for him to die and they were forced to watch. Someone behind Elie said “For God’s sake, where is God.” Elie’s inner voice says “This is where--hanging here from this gallows.” (Wiesel 65) What he means is that there is no God, this innocent young boy who has been executed for sport is the only one that deserves to be God. Later, during Rosh Hashanah prayers, he writes, “I no longer pleaded for anything. I felt strong. I was the accuser, and God the accused.” (68) He believes he is alone in the world without God without man. In a way, he finds his faith again when Rabbi Eliahu’s son left his father behind. He is scared of what he could become. He prays “Oh God, Master of the Universe, give me strength never to do what Rabbi Eliahu’s son has done.” (Wiesel 91)
ReplyDeleteIn the book, I’ve noticed a constant theme of hope and lack thereof. All throughout the book, Elie has either had a strong faith and a lot of confidence or has had very little hope. At the beginning of the book, his conviction was firm. I mention faith as hope because I feel that they are very closely related in the book. As Elle’s hope decreases, so do his faith and vice versa. As soon as they get to the first camp, Elie begins to lose hope as he sees all the death and pain the people experience and live through every day. After the early few even days, he has stopped practicing his faith and is questioning if there is even anyone to pray to anymore. As Elie loses confidence, it seems that it is a common theme amongst prisoners. Everyone except a small few stop practicing their religion if they are not outright renouncing their faith. Now in the book, it would seem that Elie needs it more than ever.
ReplyDeleteIn the Book I have seen many details that show hope and Loss of hope.In the concentration camps, Many Jews lost hope but some were still confident that they would survive. Around
ReplyDelete3 Million Jews survived the Holocaust, It was a Mix of the 2 groups of people who believed that they would survive and that they would not survive. Elie for one did keep hope in surviving (Mostly) But if he were not he was very strongly doubting surviving. During the Holocaust, Many Jews were split up from their families or they were killed before they were to split up. Hardly any jews Reunited with their families after or during the war. When Elie was only 13 he was still practicing religion, But soon later when he was about 15, he lost Faith in God and was questioning his religion because of the situations that he was in. A Theme that i thought of was Awareness because there were mixed feelings in the camps of Awareness and not being aware of almost anything that was happening.
I think that an important theme is identity. Throughout what I have read so far, I feel like the victims of the holocaust have lost their identity. Family’s have been separated and broken apart. “The camp looked as though it had been through an epidemic: empty and dead. Only a few ‘well-dressed’ inmates were wandering between the blocks.”(47) Everyone lost all of their valuable possessions. Just a simple pair of shoes can mean so much to a single person.
ReplyDelete“‘ All right,’ he said. ‘I can arrange it. For a pittance: your shoes. I’ll give you another pair. I refused to give him my shoes. They were all I had left.”(48) They had to follow instructions or else they will be punished. They are almost like puppets.
Hope plays an important theme in this memoir. Elie’s belief in God and his faith changes throughout the book. “Ahead of you lies a long road paved with suffering. Don’t lose hope. You have already eluded the worst danger: the selection. Therefore, muster your strength and keep your faith” (Wiesel 41). In this passage, Elie’s hope is reassured. He begins to trust the Pole guy and he pushes through his doubts. Elie is sure that this is the first person in a while that has treated him like a normal person. “Some men spoke of God: His mysterious ways, the sins of the Jewish people, and the redemption to come. As for me, I had ceased to pray” (Wiesel 45). Elie loses his trust in God. He believes God to be a disappointment in his life in this point of the memoir. Elie believes that if God was everything he thought He was, then these events wouldn’t have happened. He considers himself as a rebel to prove that he is losing his religious beliefs. “And in spite of myself, a prayer formed inside of me, a prayer to this God in whom I no longer believed” (Wiesel 91). Elie begins to regain his own trust in God. He fights the urge to no longer believe in God and allows himself to pray to God. He then questions why he is praying to a spirit that he doesn't believe in and realizes that God is a part of who he is. I have sometimes wondered why I pray if it doesn't always help. I came to the conclusion that it helps me to pray, it doesn't necessarily help the situation I am in. I was raised that I feel a certain relief after I pray to God and I leave my hope and faith in Him to help me. I can understand why Elie could lose his hope throughout the book after everything that had happened to him. It makes him question everything he had ever been taught.
ReplyDeleteI think one of the most prominent themes in Night is Elie’s faith and loss of faith through Auschwitz. It's clear from the beginning, Elie’s faith oversteps the regular boundaries of everyone else's faith. From the first page Elie declares his love for God, ”By day I studied the Talmud and by night I would run to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the Temple,”(Wiesel 3). This 13 year old boy cries over passages of the Torah. Then six weeks into his harrowing experience at Auschwitz Elie states, “I had ceased to pray. I concurred with Job! I was not His existence , but I doubted His absolute justice,¨(Wiesel 45). Even though Wiesel describes his terrible very clearly, his statement still leads you to think just how horrifying the concentration camp must be for him to flip perspectives so quickly. Wiesel then stops referencing his faith or even God much past page 69, where he gives his ultimatum, ¨I no longer accepted God's silence. As I swallowed my ration of soup, I turned that act into a symbol of rebellion, of protest against him,” (Wiesel 69). The Holocaust destroyed his faith forever. We need to do everything in our power to prevent this from happening again.
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