World War II (WWII) is a very common topic discussed in high school english classes mainly due to the facts that WWII is a perfect example of good vs. evil in the real world and there is an endless amount of books written about this tragic era in history. Two examples of these type of books are Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken and Elie Wiesel’s Night; and like all of the other WWII books, these two address themes about the hardships of war and how hope is always present. One specific theme that these books support is that in war, there will always be peace; this is shown through elements of faith, happiness, and trauma. To begin, the two main characters of the books Unbroken and Night face a struggle with their individual faiths, but in very different ways. Louis (Louie) Zamperini initially was not the most religious man but when faced with the most dire of situations he turned to God repeatedly for help and counsel.
Walter Dean Myers dropped out of school at the age of 15, due to family problems. He loved school, and he loved literature. Being unconnected to the world of learning, and becoming tired of not being able to read, he decided to visit the public library. Until he could no longer bear the fact that he was not getting an education(his one and only dream), he silently cried in his bedroom every night. He needed help and seeked attention from others until one day, a “do-good” counselor called his house and got him put back into the school system.
All The Light We Cannot See primarily features a setting of 1944 Germany. The author 's unique writing style accentuates description because the location, time, and narration often changes between chapters. According to the text, “Werner Pfennig grows up three hundred miles northeast of Paris in a place called Zollverein: a four- thousand- acre coal- mining complex outside Essen, Germany. It’s steel country, anthracite country, a place full of holes. Smokestacks fume and locomotives trundle back and forth on elevated conduits and leafless trees stand atop slag heaps like skeleton hands shoved up from the underworld.”
Eyes are described as “the windows to the soul” in many works. In Night, a memoir by Elie Wiesel, it is a common motif. The book focuses on the story of Eliezer, a young boy, during the bulk of the Holocaust. It tells how he made it through the first days in the concentration camp and all of the tragedy that occurred during his experience there. Throughout the novel, the author uses eyes to describe the emotions and feelings of many of the novel’s characters.
Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night tells the personal tale of his account of the inhumanity and brutality the Nazis showed during the Holocaust. Night depicts the story of a young Jew from the small town of Sighet named Eliezer. Wiesel and his family are deported to the concentration camp known as Auschwitz. He must learn to survive with his father’s help until he finds liberation from the horror of the camp. This memoir, however, hides a greater lesson that can only be revealed through careful analyzation.
In the second part of the novel All the Light We Cannot See, a prominent theme is rebellion because of what Madame Manec and some of her close friends that live in Saint-Malo have planned to do against the German soldiers and have found other ways to communicate what has been happening in France with perhaps other countries. Madame Manec, before her death, asked Marie-Laure and Etienne “Do you know what happens, Etienne”… “when you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water?” … “It jumps out. But do you know what happens when you put the frog in a pot of cool water and then slowly bring it to a boil? You know what happens then?...
This is conveyed when Elie chooses to write Night; he depicts the suffering and cruelty holocaust victims endured, which directly raises awareness about the historical phenomenon. Elie’s theme can also been seen through the brave actions and informative words expressed by the characters within his text that refuse to remain silent about the injustice.
In the World War II extermination camp Chelmno there were 150,000 deaths, the camp Belzec had 435,000 deaths, and the notorious Auschwitz-Birkenau camp ruled with over 1,000,000 deaths. In the unbelievable novel Night by Elie Wiesel, the author gives the audience a first person look on his experiences throughout his time at several prisoner of war camps as a Jewish teenager. Through the use of motifs about the night and a person’s eyes, Wiesel writes about the deeper meaning of how he kept his dignity in the face of inhumane cruelty. By analyzing the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, one can interpret the central theme of the story into a deeper meaning from the descriptions of the night and eyes, which is important because it helps younger generations to understand clearly what Holocaust survivors endured.
Night by Elie Wiesel: Although Wiesel writes about his own experience in a concentration camp during the Holocaust, both books main characters are children who are asked to have courageous and brave acts through frightening moments. Rating:
Night and Day In the great history of man, there is no event committed as gut-wrenchingly ignoble as the Holocaust. Therefore, conveying the devastation and emotional trauma on a believable and personal level is a sign of fantastic writing, which can be seen in Elie Wiesel’s Night. Moreover, to take this awful situation and put an almost light-hearted twist on it is also increasable, which is seen in the film “Life is Beautiful.” Accordingly, both of these mediums portray main characters that are in concentration camps, but present them in varying ways that create stories that feel completely different.
Aristotle wrote, “It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light (Aristotle)”. The Holocaust was one of the darkest times humanity has ever seen. A machination brewed by an extraordinarily perverse man that resulted in the deaths of millions, and robbed millions more of their faith and hope. Families were torn apart, towns were destroyed, and humanity lost, all to satisfy one man’s extreme racism and psychotic agenda. If however, one only chooses to focus on the darkness, they might overlook the light, specifically in the two stories of boys who survived against all odds and shared their tales years after defying death.
At times, it appears unviable for one’s life to transform overnight in just a few hours. However, this is something various individuals experienced in soul and flesh as they were impinged by those atrocious memoirs of the Holocaust. In addition, the symbolism portrayed throughout the novel Night, written by Elie Wiesel, presents an effective fathoming of the feelings and thoughts of what it’s like to undergo such an unethical circumstance. For instance, nighttime plays a symbolic figure throughout the progression of the story as its used to symbolize death, darkness of the soul,
he effect of a horrific memory on a small fragile boy is clearly depicted in the book Fugitive Pieces by Ann Michaels. Furthermore, Jakob’s sister is used during his life to help him cope with the memories of the holocaust. He see’s her during his hallucinations because of his PTSD and is defiantly part of the reason why he is so traumatized. His nightmares continue from his childhood even into his adulthood. Because of the dramatic experiences Jakob has gone though he also becomes a writer of the future, in which he can help prevent such catastrophe’s from ever happening.
The novel Night by Elie Wiesel, which was first published in 1958, tells a great first-hand account of a terrible event named the Holocaust. In this story, it gives a detailed memoir of a young kid named Eliezar who has to endure this appalling crisis. As the Holocaust continues to go on around them, he and his family remain optimistic about their future. Even though they were optimistic, the Holocaust finally closes in on them. Once this occurs they were pulled away from their homeland and relocated to their designated site where they were split by gender.
This novel is considered an allegory of the Holocaust. There is a similar chain of events leading to disarray when one race thinks it is superior to another. It teaches the danger of discrimination and superiority which results in eradication
