This is why he fled his adoptive parents' home, and confidently volunteered to solve the riddle of the Sphinx. Because he believed he had the ability to outwit fate he confidently issued a proclamation to Thebes, telling the suffering citizens he would be sure to punish whomever was the cause of the plague -- and unwittingly condemning himself. But in "Oedipus at Colonus," Oedipus is a humbled man. He realizes that no matter how brilliant, strong, or crafty they may be that human beings are merely playthings of the gods.
In Night, rather than being morally reformed and educated by the processes of suffering, the young iesel grows embittered. The ancient Greeks did not possess a concept of a 'good' god at all, merely a powerful, willful, and capricious collection of beings who were often at odds and played different favorites with different mortals. Merely because he is treated poorly…...
mlaWorks Cited
Sophocles. "Oedipus at Colonus."
Wiesel, Elie. Night. Oprah's Book Club Edition. New York: Hill and Wang, 2006.
"And we, the Jews of Sighet, were waiting for better days, which would not be long in coming now." (Night 5) Even as they were taken to death camps, many Jewish individuals continues to believe that God was with them and that they needed to act in agreement with his plan, despite the fact that it involved them having to suffer.
hile iesel started to doubt God's plan, he continued to have blind faith as he expected suffering to end at one point and the Jewish people to be praised for their ability to remain unaffected by such horrible happenings. The narrator's theory concerning his trust in God is very similar to the biblical figure of Job, especially considering that he lives through events that trigger similar feelings of despair. The writer tried to understand the situation he was in and used the example of Job in an attempt to…...
mlaWorks cited:
Bloom, Harold. Night - Elie Wiesel. Infobase Publishing, 2001.
Berenbaum, Michael. Elie Wiesel: God, the Holocaust, and the Children of Israel. Behrman House, Inc., 1994.
Wiesel, Elie. Legends of Our Time. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 07.09.2011.
Wiesel, Elie. Night. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 07.02.2012.
In "A Story of an Hour" the protagonist must confront the idea that for her to live, her husband and her conventional, protected domestic existence must die. What has been really killing her is not her weak heart, but her entrapment in misery, and when she is returned to the prison of her misery, she expires -- not of joy, but of the shock that she cannot escape. The contemplation of her husband's death also is a kind of shock, as it forces her to radically reconsider her life and her sense of identity in a way that would never have occurred, if she had not believed him to be dead.
Yes, Mrs. Mallard's recognition is more personal than Woolf's more all-encompassing notions of female empowerment -- but both of their experiences embody the same personal recognition of the need for all women to validate their sense of identity, self,…...
.. We appointed a Jewish Council, a Jewish police, an office
for social assistance, a labor committee, a hygiene department -- a whole government machinery. Everyone marveled at it. We should no longer have before our eyes those hostile faces, those hate-laden stares" (Wiesel, p9).
Chances of surviving the camps depended largely on whether one was deported to a work camp or a death camp and whether one was of sufficient age and physical vitality to be of some service to the German war effort as a slave laborer. Even in the work camps, those who were weaker, older, and less susceptible to extreme deprivation and abuse succumbed to the many chronic illnesses that afflicted prisoners living in the most unsanitary and inhumane conditions imaginable.
Wiesel also describes how survival under such extreme conditions required one to give up some of the most basic human emotions and concern for others, even others in…...
ecause Elie Wiesel's Night provides one of the most graphic and intimate accounts of the horrors of the holocaust and the effect it has on the human psyche, it serves as the best primary source that can be used to teaching the Holocaust to a secondary level high school classroom. Not only is it an essential book to read, it serves to move the curriculum forward in teaching students how to be good and responsible citizens.
ibliography
obbitt, John Franklin. The Curriculum. oston: Houghton Mifflin, 1918.
erenbaum, Michael, Kramer, Arnold. The History of the Holocaust as Told in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. altimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005.
Cargas, Harry James. In Conversation with Elie Wiesel. New York: Diamond Communications, 1992.
Cargas, Harry James. Telling the Tale: A Tribute to Elie Wiesel. Saint Louis: Time eing ooks, 1993.
Fine, Ellen S. Legacy of Night: The Literary Universe of Elie Wiesel. Albany: State University Press,…...
mlaBibliography
Bobbitt, John Franklin. The Curriculum. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1918.
Berenbaum, Michael, Kramer, Arnold. The History of the Holocaust as Told in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005.
Cargas, Harry James. In Conversation with Elie Wiesel. New York: Diamond Communications, 1992.
Cargas, Harry James. Telling the Tale: A Tribute to Elie Wiesel. Saint Louis: Time Being Books, 1993.
The prize is not awarded every year, since 1901 there have been 19 years in which it was determined that no candidate fit the criteria. However, in 1986 Wiesel received the prize because of his continual work towards reminding humanity that violence, repression and racism have no place in the modern world. Since 1958, and the publication of Night, Wiesel continued to write, lecture, and advocate a continual "message of peace, atonement and human dignity…. His message is based on his own personal experience of total humiliation…. His commitment, which originated in the sufferings of the Jewish people, has been widened to embrace all repressed peoples and races" (Norwrgian Nobel Committee, 1986).
Since 1958, Wiesel has authored over 50 books and publications, numerous reviews, thousands of speeches -- all with a major focus on the idea of peace, humanity, and coexistence. Although not part of the Nobel Committee's decision, shortly…...
mlaREFERENCES
Elie Wiesel Foundation. (2010, January). Background Information. Retrieved September 2010, from Eliewieselfoundation.org: http://www.eliewieselfoundation.org/aboutus.aspx
Nobel, A. (2010). Excerpt from the Will of Alfred Nobel. Retrieved September 2010, from Novelprize.org: http://nobelprize.org/alfred_nobel/will/short_testamente.html
Norwrgian Nobel Committee. (1986, October 14). The Nobel Peace Prize for 1986. Retrieved September 2010, from Nobelprize.Org: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1986/press.html
Wiesel, E. (1982). Night. New York: Bantam.
Elie Wiesel
Introduction, Main Body and Conclusion
In "The Perils of Indifference" (1999), olocaust survivor Elie Wiesel expressed his public support for the intervention in Kosovo to stop the genocide there, and drew upon the lessons of 20th Century history to justify this action in a very effective way. Bearing in mind that Wiesel is speaking to the president of the United States and the First Lady, he is very careful in his introductory and concluding remarks to thank the United States troops who liberated him from the Buchenwald concentration camp in 1945. Those familiar with Wiesel's biography would know that its name was Buchenwald, and that he and his family had first been deported from ungary to Auschwitz in 1944, where his mother and sister were gassed. e and his father were then forced marched to Buchenwald before the Soviets captured Auschwitz, and his father died there shortly before the Americans…...
mlaHis organization is effective in that he reminds his listeners in both the introduction and conclusion that he was once a frightened a confused victim of genocide. All of this had happened to him when he was fifteen years old, and arrived in Auschwitz from a small town in the Carpathian Mountains, having no real idea of what this place was or what his true fate was going to be. For the Nazis, he and his father only existed to perform slave labor at the Buna factories at Auschwitz until they were starved or worked to death. Only later did he learn that Britain and America knew about this camp by 1944 and did nothing, and he uses this example as a moral warning that President Bill Clinton was correct not to stand aside in Kosovo and allow genocide to occur there. This is what led him to reflect on the profound question of indifference in the face of suffering and persecution, which is the central point of his speech: why do the good people stand aside and do nothing while the perpetrators of genocide carry on with impunity?
3) Verbal Signposts
All the main verbal signposts of the speech center on the theme of indifference in the face of suffering and death, and that in the case of the Jews even God seen to have abandoned them and cared nothing about their fate. These questions of why the outside world seemed so silent and indifferent to the genocide of the Jews have haunted Wiesel his entire life, for obvious reasons, and he organizes his speech around these central themes. Perhaps God simply did not care, and "we felt that to be abandoned by God was worse than to be punished by Him. Better an unjust God than an indifferent one" (Wiesel 1999). In his novel Night, God does not hear the prayers of the millions who are being annihilated, while justice, morality and even meaning are absent in a world where the Nazis have absolute power over
Furthermore, that iesel describes her as a girl rather than a woman is telling. The image in my head is a young girl of 13 or 14, far too young for sexual activity, coerced into doing something, perhaps for the promise of food for her or her family. It is just a heartbreaking image. This makes her frantic attempt to cover her breasts and cover her shame all the more poignant, as one can only imagine how she felt like a traitor to her people to be caught having sex with a Nazi. Then, when one considers how many young girls must have been put in this same position, over and over again, forced to choose between impossible alternatives: protecting their families or taking a moral stand with their people, it just becomes overwhelming.
Of course, the vignette is not from the girl's perspective, but from a young Elie's perspective.…...
mlaWorks Cited
Wiesel, Elie. Night. CITY of PUBLICATION: PUBLISHER, YEAR.
This apathetic sentiment even envelops the narrator, as the following quotation demonstrates by showing that Eliezer knew that "the child was still alive when I passed him." Despite this fact, the narrator does nothing to help the child due to his extreme apathy. However, the narrator's apathy is proven most effectively by his silent answer to the question as to God's presence, which the subsequent quotation suggests. "Where is He? Here He is -- He is hanging here on this gallows. . . ." (Wiesel 61-62). This final quotation shows how extreme the apathy is that has taken over Eliezer's perceptions and actions. He does not even believe in God anymore, who he believes is as dead as the child will be who is hanging in front of him.
At the end of the manuscript, Eliezer believes that he is virtually as dead as the child who was hanged, and…...
mlaReferences
Wiesel, Elie. Night. New York: Bantam Books. 1982. Print.
Faith and God in Elie iesel's Night
Elie iesel's Night is a dramatic autobiographical novel that vividly describes the unimaginable horrors of the Holocaust. ords do not make justice to what happened in German concentration camps, but if one is to see a glimpse of it in a written novel, the writings of iesel are the place to look for it. iesel describes in vivid details the sheer cruelty and absolute evil of the Nazi regime. Jews who went through the Nazi Hell were profoundly transformed by the atrocious experience. So horrific was what the Jewish prisoners saw in Nazi camps that even the most devout religious persons began to question their faith in God. Elie was no exception. From being a faithful youngster who could not imagine life without his belief in God, he turned later into a questioner, interrogator, and the accuser of God. He questioned God's justice and…...
mlaWorks Cited:
Wiesel, Elie, and Marion Wiesel. Night. New York, NY: Hill and Wang, a division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006. Print.
Night by Elie iesel
Though it is called a novel, Night (iesel 1982) is actually a memoir about iesel's experiences as a young, devout Jewish boy who is forced by orld ar II Nazis into a concentration camp, along with his family. The main character, Eliezer, is actually iesel, and through his descriptions and thoughts about his life before, during and after the concentration camps, iesel illustrates ways that people may recognize evil and fight it by: listening to warnings, taking a side and acting; paying attention to evil as it tightens its grip on us; acting against the oppressor rather than the oppressed; remembering the terrible results of evil so we can fight it in the future.
Idea(s) Developed by iesel about Circumstances Compelling Individuals to Respond
One idea that iesel develops is the idea that we should listen to people who have experienced evil and warn us about it, then take…...
mlaWorks Cited
Wiesel, Elie. Night. New York, NY: Bantam Books, 1982.
In this case, iesel attempted to trust God the way his mentor and the other religious villagers did, but each family was moved and deported. Moshe the Beadle escaped just to be labeled a lunatic, and the hope in God proved futile. In such circumstances, the most faithful of people would remind themselves to take joy in suffering for their faiths, to remind themselves that the Bible gives instructions for such difficult moments. Like iesel, I would have been able to cope in such a way for a while, but soon, my faith would be tested as well. As plague after plague continued to occur, just as it did in iesel's experience, my faith would begin to suffer, as I wondered why God was not saving those who were not only coming to him in their time of need, but had always been steadfast believers.
iesel's faith continued to take…...
mlaWorks Cited
Wiesel, Elie. Night. New York: Hill & Wang, 1960.
Night," by Elie Wiesel, "The Plague," by Albert Camus, and the "I Have a Dream" speech, by Martin Luther King, Jr. Specifically, it will discuss the views of human nature held by Wiesel, Camus, and King. Are people basically good or bad? Who is more optimistic or pessimistic? Who is right? Martin Luther King, Jr. is the optimist of these three writers, but each author makes the reader think, and that is the ultimate goal of any journalist.
EUROPEAN HISTORY
At first glance, these three pieces seem quite diverse in their stories, but in reality, they each tell a compelling tale of humankind at its best, and at its worst. Each author has a different view, each piece tells a different story, and yet, they all force the reader to question how they view humankind, and what they believe. In "The Plague," the character Tarrou is a man who has "lost…...
mlaBibliography
Camus, Albert. The Plague. New York: Vintage Books, 1991.
King, Martin Luther Jr. "I Have a Dream." University of Minnesota. 2003. 14 April 2003. http://web66.coled.umn.edu/new/MLK/MLK.html
Wiesel, Elie. Night. New York: Avon, 1970.
Night by Elie Wiesel [...] main ideas in the book and thesis of the Author, and then provide an evaluation of the book. Wiesel's book "Night" is a moving and poignant account of this time spent in German concentration camps during World War II. He chronicles how he managed to survive while so many other Jews perished, and what it meant to his family and his life. The extermination of Jews during the Holocaust was one of the world's greatest tragedies, and books like Wiesel's keep the history alive so no one will ever forget what these people endured at the hands of madmen.
The author's thesis and reason for writing this book is quite clear. He wanted the world to know what he saw and experienced as a young boy, and how it colored his world forever. He lost his entire family to the Nazis, and came away from…...
mlaReferences
Wiesel, Elie. Night. New York: Discus Books, 1970.
How the German army used this deception can be best quoted from Night when the Pole in charge of the block where Eliezer was kept with other men said, "Comrades, you are now in the concentration camp Auschwitz. Ahead of you lies a long road paved with suffering. Do not lose hope. You have already eluded the worst danger: the selection. Therefore, muster your strength and keep your faith. We shall all see the day of liberation" (Wiesel, 1981, pg 5).
The work of these prisoners was to build the Auschwitz camp which was a method used by Nazis to kill Jews when they are overworked with weakness or caught diseases.
At another occasion, Wiesel quotes in Night, "we were quite used to this kind of rumor. It was not the first time that false prophets announced to us: peace in the wind, the ed Cross negotiating our liberation, or other…...
mlaReferences
Quick, A. (1994). Deception. New York: Bantam Books.
Wiesel, E. (1981). Night. New York: Glencoe/McGraw-Hill.
Wiesel, E. (2008). The Night Trilogy: Night, Dawn, Day. New York: Hill and Wang.
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