What Are The Similarities Between Night And A Long Way Gone

A memoir us a collection of memories. Many authors choose to write memoirs rather than autobiographies because memoirs cover a more specific time. Ralston Bowles said, “Don’t let your struggle become your identity.” Both Ismael and Elie struggled through death and violence during war but chose to become more than war survivors. Two memoirs- Night and A Long Way Gone, one about a child soldier and one about a Holocaust survivor share many common themes such as denial, desensitization, and survival. Denial is to refuse to believe something. In A Long Way Gone, Ishmael and his village often denied the presence of war in their country. They didn’t believe that wars would affect them. Denial is demonstrated on page one when Ishmael says, “...it was evident they had seen something that plagued their minds, something that we would refuse to accept if they told us.” This develops the theme of denial because Ishmael refused to believe the war had affected those people and that it would eventually affect him. Similar to Ishmael, Elie and his community refused to believe Moishe and his story about the Nazi’s. On page 7 Elie says, People not only refused to believe

Towards the beginning, Ishmael was always on the run. He was running and hiding to survive. On page 69 Ishmael says, “...I was starting over and over. I was always on the move, always going somewhere.” If Ishmael wanted to survive, he had to keep moving. If he stopped running and hiding, he could have died. Similar to the way that Ishmael was always running so was Elie. Either running from camp to camp or being overworked. It was run or die. On page 85 Elie says, “ ‘Faster, you filthy dogs!’ We were no longer marching, we were running.” Elie and the other Jews were forced to run, nonstop, in freezing cold conditions or die. In conclusion, both Elie and Ishmael were always running, scavenging and hiding to