The role of the writer in modern and ancient societies is still the same; to tell readers what they want to hear, or perhaps, what they don’t want to hear. Writing started as something for the rich, for many poor folks lacked the education to become literate. Ideas were spread from father to son, mother to daughter, and therefore stayed stagnant, unchanging. The power of the writer is to give meaning to the meaningless, ideas to the idealess: it both gives and takes away: a ruthless, trickster god, but is forgiving in the softest ways. The role of the writer is the creator: to present new ideas, knowledge, and challenges. Therefore, the reader’s suspension of disbelief and openness to new ideas is essential to the writer’s job: the reader and …show more content…
He explains the often weighty role of the survivor: one of someone who has other’s stories left in their hands after everyone else is long dead; “I believed that having survived by chance, I was duty-bound to give meaning to my survival, to justify each moment of my life. I knew the story had to be told. Not to transmit an experience is to betray it” (Wiesel 1). As a survivor of Auschwitz, he argues the importance of telling these stories, of respecting the dead by letting all know their stories and their downfall. Writing and surviving are both isolating experiences, but for a writer’s words to reach their full potential as stories and as essential truths, writing must be read. The writer's duty is always to the reader, for despite many claims, writing is never just for the writer. He grapples with reader’s understanding: “Rather than a link, it became a wall. Could it be surmounted? Could the reader be brought to the other side? I knew the answer was negative, and yet I knew that ‘no’ had to become ‘yes.’ It was the last wish of the dead” (Wiesel 1). What good would do to tell a dead man’s story to only the wind? And thus, the reader’s role becomes essential: what is a god to a