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123 essays on character analysis
123 essays on character analysis
123 essays on character analysis
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
More handpicked essays just for you.
123 essays on character analysis
123 essays on character analysis
123 essays on character analysis
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
In the book, “Out of the dust”, the characters suffer through a lot of loss and hardship, but in the end, they overcome these hardships. Billie Jo becomes not able to play piano because of her burnt hands, Billie Jo’s mom dies along with her boy in the process, and her father acts like he doesn’t love her anymore. But, she plays piano in the end. She finds that just because her mom dies, she still has ma in her heart.
One theme of Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse is that trials and tribulations strengthen us. The title of the novel relates to this theme for many reasons. Throughout the novel, Billie Jo becomes stronger through hardships. One example of this claim was Billie Jo’s struggle with the piano. In Hired Work it states, “Now I can’t hardly stay in the same room with one.”
Symbolism uses symbols to represent ideas or qualities, such as loss, grief, or pain. This idea is of utmost importance because, in the novel Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse, two symbols show the suffering of Billie Jo and Daddy. Hence, the author uses symbolism to explain the loss in Billie Jo’s and Daddy’s lives, using the gaping hole that daddy digs and the missing cranberry sauce. Primarily, Billie Jo’s symbol for suffering loss was the cranberry sauce, as it represents her loss of her mother.
The second “kiss” from God Elie received was in the Rabbi’s words. When his life began to progressively become worse in the camps moments like the ones in the ghettos were not common; he began to become more despair. The book Night states, “He was the only rabbi whom nobody ever failed to address as "Rabbi" in Buna. He looked like one of those prophets of old, always in the midst of his people when they needed to be consoled. And, strangely, his words never provoked anyone.
Night Elie loses his faith throughout the book, but it was not always like that. Elie used to be very religious and wanted to learn as much as possible about his faith. “One evening, I told him how unhappy I was not to be able to find in sighet to teach me the Zohar, the Kabbalistic works, the secret of jewish mysticism” (Wiesel 5). Elie said to Moshe the Beadle. His father wasn’t supportive of his decision so he took things into his own hands.
In this scene from Night by Elie Wiesel (published 1958), Elie and many other men were crammed into train cars as they were transported from one concentration camp to another. Many men on the train had either reached their fate or were struggling though their last minutes. The men had been deprived of food for a very long time and were in desperate need of even the smallest crumb of food. Then, pieces of bread had been thrown into the wagon’s and everyone fought for the bread, not because they thought it would taste good, but because their lives depended on it. It was every man for themselves and people will willing to kill for a crust of bread, showing that life or death situations expose the evil side of people by showing their selfish natures.
The brutality the Germans displayed in the 1930s through the 1940s was utterly horrifying. In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, the author’s harrowing experience is shared. The Holocaust is worldly known as being one of the largest genocides in history, but not many truly understand what it was like to live through and witness. Many who encountered the cruelty and merciless of the Germans have passed but a few remain that live to tell their story to the world and try to explain the feelings that coursed through them during the genocide and even now. Wiesel, who lived in Auschwitz for nearly four years, shares his story and symbolism is prevalent throughout the text.
The night is a motif in the novel, appearing again and again in the text. While Elie is in the process of moving into the ghetto and becoming accustomed to their new home he says "Night Fell". A second instance that night is used is when the train is taking the Jewish people to the concentration camp. Elie says "Only the darkness of night". While at the concentration camp, the last day in the Jewish calendar is drawing near so everyone is gathering around to pray.
For me, the greatest moment of sadness in the memoir is when Elie’s father dies. His death is gruesome and much suffering is shown throughout the last pages of the memoir. A dramatic shift is made in Elie’s perspective after this traumatic event. His father serves as his sole motivation to continue on in their cruel conditions and without him Elie is hopeless and alone. I feel Elie's father's death also symbolizes the unjustness of their situation.
Before I begin discussing about the symbolism in Night, I want to point out the importance of symbolism in any form of storytelling, and even in reality. In a way, symbolism is what makes ordinary objects or symbols into meaning. Symbolism can make anything as powerful as actual words. In that sense, symbolism creates the story being read. I believe a story can become more powerful and more touching if there is a very symbolic object or symbol involved.
The title Night is a symbol itself. Just thinking about the word “night” one thinks of darkness, particularly the darkness of the concentration camp. The title itself symbolizes the loss of hope, the loss of honor, and the loss of the human soul. In chapter three of the memoir, Elie Wiesel talks about his first night in Birkenau.
The Nazi's dehumanizes the Jews like animals by being psychologically deprived of their necessities. In the beginning of the story, the Hungarian police and later the SS soldiers force all the Jewish people into ghettos, Elie says: "There was no longer any distinction between rich and poor, notables and the others; we were all people condemned to the same fate" (Wiesel 21). The Hungarian police and the Nazi's take away the Jews individual rights as people and their safety as they are placed in a confined space they are seen as the same. Consequently, at the death camp, Auschwitz Elie was given a number along with other Jewish people to symbolically show them that they are inferior to the Germans: "I became A-7713. From then on, I had no other
The novel "Night" by Elie Wiesel was full of symbolism, the word "night" in the first chapter was used as both a symbol and metaphor. Wiesel used the word "night" as a metaphor for the holocaust, the horror among thousands of families and the darkness that was upon them when entering the concentration camps. On the other hand "night" was used as a symbol as well, Wiesel illustrates the world with no light and no hope which he was faced to survive in. Essentially in the first chapter, one night elie's father had been telling a story to his family and was interrupted, forced to leave- only to find out the Jews were being deported- this story remained untold throughout the novel, and then symbolized what his family left behind when they were
After going through the holocaust many victims said that they suffered from PTSD, depression, and sleep disorders other had health problems due to the poor conditions of the camp. Night by Elie Wiesel is about the authors expirence of the holocaust as a teenage boy and how it slowly starts to break his pyche. In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, the author uses conflict, characterization, symbolism to enhance the theme that putting people in tortuous situations causes mentality and body to break. The conflict of misery Elie and others had to go through because of the Holocaust.
Finally, it was with the use of symbolism that showed the power of understanding someone else’s situation. An example can be the blue suede shoes that roger wanted to buy using the money he would have stolen. These shoes represent his poverty and loneliness: “I wanted a pair of blue suede shoes,” said the boy. (2). Roger is shown to be very frail and scared; I feel those shoes can be a representation of his want of something more in life and a new bond that was formed between him and Mrs. Jones.