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The nature of identity in literature
Identity in literature
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In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, Eliezer Wiesel narrates the legendary tale of what happened to him and his father during the Holocaust. In the introduction, Wiesel talks about how his village in Seghet was never worried about the war until it was too late. Wiesel’s village received advanced notice of the Germans, but the whole village ignored it. Throughout the entire account, Wiesel has many traits that are key to his survival in the concertation camps.
In the novel, “Night” Elie Wiesel communicates with the readers his thoughts and experiences during the Holocaust. Wiesel describes his fight for survival and journey questioning god’s justice, wanting an answer to why he would allow all these deaths to occur. His first time subjected into the concentration camp he felt fear, and was warned about the chimneys where the bodies were burned and turned into ashes. Despite being warned by an inmate about Auschwitz he stayed optimistic telling himself a human can’t possibly be that cruel to another human.
In the book Night, we the readers witness the hardships and struggles in Elie’s life during the traumatic holocaust. The events that take place in this story are unbearable and are thought to be demented in modern times. In the beginning Elie is shown as a normal teenage Jewish boy, but the events are so drastic that we the readers forget how he was like in the beginning. Changes were made to Elie during the book, whether they were minor or major. The changes generated from himself, the journey, and other people.
Elie Wiesel’s Experiences In the book Night, Elie Wiesel recounts his experiences of the Holocaust. Throughout this experience, Elie Wiesel is exposed to life he previously thought unimaginable and they consequently change his life. He becomes To begin with, Elie Wiesel learns that beings aware and mindful are more than just important. On many occasions, he receives warnings and hints toward the impending tragedy.
As for me, I had ceased to pray... I was not denying His existence, but I doubted His absolute justice” (45). It is apparent here that the effect of the Holocaust on the Jewish people’s faith was delayed on some level. Elie refuses to pray to the God that apparently abandoned him. This is personified when he says he doubts that God has absolute justice.
Night, an autobiography that was written by Elie Wiesel, is from his perspective as a prisoner. The book focuses on Wiesel and his father experiencing the torture that the Nazis put them through, and the unspeakable events that Wiesel witnessed. The author, Wiesel, was one of the handfuls of survivors to be able to tell his time about the appalling incidents that occurred during the Holocaust. That being the case, in the memoir Night, Wiesel uses somber descriptive diction, along with vivid syntax to portray the dehumanizing actions of the Nazis and to invoke empathy to the reader.
Lack of Humanity, Loss of Identity In Elie Wiesel’s “Night”, Elie begins the novel living a normal life in the small town of Sighet in Transylvania. He lives with a family of six, with his mother, father, and three sisters. The story picks up quickly after the Nazis move in, first taking away the town’s rights to own any gold, jewelry, or any valuables, then no longer have the right to restaurants, cafes, synagogues, or to even travel by rail. Soon the town of Sighet then came the ghettos. It was prohibited from leaving their homes after six o 'clock in the evening.
Life is full of good and bad experiences, but you don’t always have control of what happens. That can be scary sometimes and it depends on how you handle it as to whether you get out of that situation. In the memoir Night written by Elie Wiesel, Eli, a teenager had been taken away from his home and taken to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Night is the scary record of Elie Wiesel’s memories of the death of his own family and the death of his own innocence as he tries to fight his way out of the concentration camp. Over the course of the book, Eli changes from a believer in God living in bearable conditions to someone who has become profane because of the situation he’s been put in.
Throughout the story Night by Elie Wiesel, the most relevant themes that stand out are dehumanization as the Jewish people are labelled as nothing, loss of faith because their constant struggles makes them question a higher power and camaraderie between one another to sustain the death
Throughout Elie Wiesel’s daunting novella Night, the experiences Elie faces brutally strips him
In Satrapi’s graphic novel, she describes her childhood and experiences living between the Iranian revolution and war. Over time, she starts to mature and obtain a deeper understanding of the war, overall changing her character and identity from an innocent, naive child, to more mature and understanding. In Wiesel’s novel, he talks about himself as a young boy who was forced to endure the harsh conditions of the concentration camp, as they continue to get harder, overall making it harder for him to survive. In Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel Persepolis and Elie Wiesel’s novel, Night, both authors argue how change in identity is inevitable while living through traumatic events. Throughout Persepolis, Marji seems to grasp a better understanding of the war as time goes by, and starts to become reluctant to her faith and religion as she starts to learn about the loss of her loved ones.
Once liberated from these concentration camps, Elie has done much to make people around the world more aware of the indescribable events that occurred during his time in these camps, and make sure that people will speak out against these events instead of staying silent, so that these events may be prevented in the future. He wrote many pieces and delivered many speeches in attempt to lift the world out of indifference. I believe that Elie’s novel Night communicates his message more effectively than his speech, Perils of Indifference. Not only does it convey his message of that we all must speak out against
But then he experiences the hardships of the Holocaust and it abruptly changed him. In the book Night, the main theme is religious belief, shown when Elie talks about the his strong religion and belief as a boy, his disconnection from religion, and the inhumane actions the Nazis caused. Having a strong belief in something so important to who we are and then being confronted with horrors which cause us to cease to believe, is a significant life changing event. During this time, many people questioned where God truly was. Even Elie was questioning where God was.
One reoccurring theme that is present in the Holocaust is a change of identity with everyone involved. The incidents people confronted, especially the Jews, during this harsh time was life changing and traumatic. The identity of many in the concentration camps changed; young and innocent children developed into mature men. Elie Wiesel in the novella, Night, faces a change of identity within himself and the surrounding people, the Jews, through a variety of events that he encounters.
That nigh the soup tasted of corpses”. Elie Wiesel used to be a vivacious person- always seeking God’s presence- but from the commence of this genocide he has been negatively impacted. God used to be his everything; his strength and his mellifluous song that comforted his very soul. However, all that he is dependent on now is bread and water-