Night and Dawn – A Comparison of Elie Wisel’s writings Essay

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Night and Dawn. both written by Elie Wiesel. are two books that have changed the manner people view life and decease. Night is a narrative of the Holocaust that occurs in the clip frame of the mid-1900s. Elie. the writer and the chief character of Night. Tells of the horrific old ages he spent in Germany’s concentration cantonments. During this clip period. 1000000s of Judaic people were shot by merciless Nazis. Dawn focuses on a immature male child Elisha who is recruited into a terrorist organisation after the Holocaust. He finally finds himself caught in the center of the war between the Jewish and the British combat for freedom.

Both of Wiesel’s narratives involve affecting emotions. Night shows the reader the horror of being murdered. Similarly. Dawn is about the horror of slaying person. It is interesting to observe that in Night. the Judaic is in forepart of the gun ; in Dawn. the Judaic adult male is behind a gun. Both state of affairss contain the prevailing emotion of fright. The two narratives vary. but behind their screens. these narratives deal with the same topic–cruel slaying. Elie Wiesel deals with this subject through the characters. the character’s histories. and their similarities and differences.

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Elie Wiesel’s journey begins in Sighet where his household believed strongly in their faith. The Nazis have set the end — race murder of the Judaic citizens. He is sent to a concentration cantonment in Germany where he must digest the rough ferociousness of the Nazis. It is merely at these concentration cantonments that Elie discovers the truth about himself. Dawn is about a scarred Judaic adult male Elisha who is recruited to fall in an extremist group that is contending for their freedom against the English.

One of the terrorist party members. David. is captured by the English during an operation of smuggling weaponries and is threatened to be killed for perpetrating this offense. The Judaic freedom combatants all of a sudden become angered and invent their ain program ; The gaining control of their ain surety. Captain Dawson. The Judaic so program to interchange the Captain for David. Elisha. who merely joined the group. is so assigned his first task–the rough mission of slaying the Captain. While Elisha may non hold a physically painful undertaking. he must digest the mental torment that slaying brings. Once the murdered. now the liquidator.

Wiesel utilizes the characters to stress his intents. The two chief characters in Night and Dawn. Elie and Elisha. portion both similarities and differences. Elie keeps his feelings and his actions within his head. His ideas tell the narrative and supply readers with emotion. On the other manus. Elisha tends to move his ideas out. which is the chief ground that he joined the terrorist group. For illustration. Elie prays on a regular basis in order to fuel his hope that one twenty-four hours he will happen freedom ; Elisha contrastingly kills and destructs out of his emotional and awful yesteryear. This they both lost their cherished childhood at such an early age. Their childhood provides us with the opportunity to be naive and more significantly. the opportunity to be guiltless. Artlessness is the lone clip in life. where you do non possess the cognition to distinguish between right and incorrect. Unfortunately. the chief characters did non hold the clip to easy research adulthood.

Alternatively. they were forced into the chilling and unstable life of maturity finally prima Elie and Elisha down to the fork in the way. The two storytellers try to convert themselves that their actions are helpful to society or to themselves. For illustration. Elisha says. “I’ll think of David excessively. I reflected. He’ll protect me. John Dawson may seek to do me laugh. but I won’t make it. David will come to my rescue” ( 79 ) . Elisha is seeking to reassure himself that David. the Judaic surety. is a good ground to slay the Captain. Similarly. Elie had many ideas toward his committedness to God. When he eventually inquiries his religion he claims. “I felt really strong. I was the accuser. God the accused” ( 65 ) . As shown through these illustrations. throughout the novels. the reader is able to hold on and experience Wiesel’s ideas and thoughts by carefully detecting and analysing the characters of Elie and Elisha.

Wiesel wrote Night in an effort to go forth the reader feeling as if he were a Judaic citizen during the clip of the Holocaust. The writer achieves this through his graphic descriptions and emotional household personal businesss. such as the clip where Elie is separated from his household. When linking with a character. one understands the character’s quandary. such as Elie’s oppugning of his spiritual religion. In Dawn. Wiesel’s intent was to do the reader see through the eyes of a liquidator. and the trouble of slaying without a ground in which he believes. Elisha struggles because he can non happen the reply to the inquiry within himself: “Why am I killing Captain Dawson? ” Both narratives try to do the reader empathize with the chief character. Both Elie and Elisha have a hard clip life in Night and Dawn. The writer exaggerates this in Dawn by utilizing the phrase “Poor male child! ” to depict Elisha. In Night. the writer tried to derive understanding for Elie by seting him into painful state of affairss.

One event that represents this was the clip where Elie was whipped by a Kapo. “He took his clip between each shot. Merely the first 1s truly ache me. I could hear him counting” ( 55 ) . Traveling into more deepness. Wiesel writes about how each character trades with his hurting. Elie copes with loss through his belief in God and his strength ; Elisha copes with his loss by pass oning with phantoms of the people by which he has been influenced. and the people he has influenced.

While doing the readers sympathize with the chief characters. Wiesel besides uses both narratives as of import information that reflect on our yesteryear and our present. Night and Dawn serve as certifications that show readers some of the darkest minutes in our history. In these two novels. the writer compares the yesteryear to the present. While the audience reads this book. it may recognize that we still face the same jobs today as we did fifty old ages ago. Possibly Wiesel wrote these books in effort to alter the hereafter for the better of world.

Even though there are many similarities between Night and Dawn. the books besides have important differences. Foremost. in Dawn. The tabular arraies have turned. and this clip they are in control. Many times throughout Dawn. the terrorists say. “This is war. ” in an effort to give ground to the blackwash of the English adult male. However. they are merely “putting on the field-gray uniform of the SS” ( 30 ) . Possibly the Nazis used this same alibi while viciously butchering 1000s of Judaic people. The aggressor must set himself in the victim’s places ; similarly. the reader must set himself into the chief character’s places. And although the tabular arraies have turned for the Judaic adult male. the reader can still associate to the chief character because he is in his places. This butchering necessarily scars each victim.

Of class. each character trades with his hurting in a different manner. In Night. Elie uses his ideas to mend his lesions constructively. In Dawn. Elisha acts out his ideas and seeks retaliation destructively. A premier illustration that is representative of Elie is the clip when he sees the immature male child that is being hung. At this event. a adult male asks. “Where is God now? ” Elie so responds with the following idea: “Where is He? Here He is–He is hanging here on this gallows…” ( 62 ) . However. Elie does non talk out ; instead. he keeps his ideas within himself. On the other manus. Elisha uses his inherent aptitude to steer him into wickedness. As Elisha bitterly provinces:

I understood Gad’s resentment ; so I envied it. He was losing a friend. and it hurt. But when you lose a friend every twenty-four hours it doesn’t hurt so much. And I’d lost plentifulness of friends in my clip ; sometimes I thought of myself as a life cemetery. That was the existent ground I followed Gad to Palestine and became a terrorist: I had no more friends to lose ( 35 ) .

This suggests that Elie has become wholly asleep to the thought of decease. He has been set free to the load of mourning. This is why Elisha does non shout or shout out in hurting after he murders Captain Dawson. It is interesting to observe that even though Elie and Elisha find themselves in similar state of affairss. they each trade with their jobs in their ain alone ways.

These two novels carry the same purpose–touching the Black Marias of the readers from their history. to their agonising life during the Holocaust. In Dawn. Wiesel states that “War is like night… It covers everything” . This statement proved true for both Elie and Elisha ; nevertheless. the war did non give them the same position on life or of the Holocaust. Dawn and Night show the good and the bad that resulted from life in a painful yesteryear. Elie hunts within himself to detect interior peace. even during such a painful period in his life. Similarly. Elisha besides searches within himself but unlike Elie. he discovers utmost hatred. Dawn and Night are stupefying novels that bring the reader into some of the most painful and agonising scenario ; this was what Wiesel desired–and he has been successful.

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