Monday, February 27, 2012

Patience is the Key

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck Chapters 1 through 2...


    Jon, I feel that discussing how experiences can change a person dramatically, for bad or for good, was a great way to end Mr. Wiesel's book since there is much contrast between the character Elie used to be before he went through those events and what he became after them. I am very glad that you agreed with me on this, and by using Elie's religious beliefs to illustrate the situation, it can be clearly distinguished just how much Night was able to show us about human nature. This new book that we are starting can also be seen to teach the reader about the things humans do when faced with obstacles, and the relationship between George and Lennie in Of Mice and Men is a very unique one that is experienced by many people in real life.
    Today, I want to talk about the patience it takes when handling a person that is mentally unstable, especially since Lennie is a character that has to be watched closely because of his disabilities. George seems to get very annoyed when Lennie cannot understand certain concepts of the world, and this is a key reaction of a human dealing with someone that is ignorant of things that may seem easy for normal people to understand. From what can be told so far, George has to deal with Lennie everyday by babysitting his every move, and Lennie has now become sort of a burden on him. With this kind of situation, patience is really needed, because although it might feel like the babysitter is the one that has to deal with taking care of two people, it is often the person with the disability that suffers most. George may sometimes be rough on Lennie for his own benefit, but it can be noticed that George really cares since most of the things that he yells at Lennie about would make life easier for both of them if improved on. Human nature makes it so that George feels the pressures of taking care of Lennie, and this upsets him often, but the truth is really that George hasn't given up on his companion yet. "George said, 'I want you to stay with me, Lennie. Jesus Christ, somebody'd shoot you for a coyote if you was by yourself. No, you stay with me. Your Aunt Clara wouldn't like you running off by yourself, even if she is dead.'" (pg. 14). Although George may deny that he is fond of Lennie because of the trouble he has caused, he also doesn't make it clear that he still stays with the man due to only responsibilities.
    Just like learning from the past, denying as a sign of looking stronger is also something humans tend to do when faced with situations that make them rethink their life experiences. George is a character that may now be rude and bossy, but it is easily predictable that his true feelings towards watching over his partner will come out sooner or later. Jon, do you think that their relationship will deepen over time, or that more obstacles will separate the two men as the book goes on?

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Night Chapters 3-4: a Lack of Faith

First of all, I apologize for not being able to post in a while.  As a response to your last post, I completely agree with your last paragraph.  After being submitted to such dramatic events like Elie was, significant events no longer carry any positive or negative meaning.  It is simply another great wave that your boat is braving in the stormy happenings of your life.  That's a bit of a broad metaphor, but I mean to say that you simply absorb things that happen and do not dwell on them, simply understand that they exist. 
    In this post, I would like to talk about how Elie's religious beliefs begin to waver.  Immediately after his family gets of the train is when he first begins to doubt his god.  Through all the confusion, death, and mayhem around him, he simply cannot imagine that a god, the same god that was supposedly kind and omnipotent, could allow such terrible things to happen.  He interprets it as a lie, something that disproves the power of his god. 
     He no doubt continues to believe in his religion, after living in such a religious household all his life with highly religious family members, but he does not believe it quite as strongly.  Being such heavily indoctrinated with faith cannot be easily removed by any means, in any circumstances.  Disbelief is not being questioned here; Instead, it is simply a lack of absolute power. "But I had ceased to pray. How I sympathized with Job! I did not deny God's existence, but I doubted his absolute justice." (Night, 42)

Monday, February 20, 2012

What Desperation Can Do

Night by Elie Wiesel Chapters 7 through 9


    Jon, since you haven't been able to post in a while, I will continue to discuss the topic of hate that you talked about in your first post, especially since it can be seen even at this point in the book. Although hate is usually thought of as against the Jews by the Nazis during the time of the Holocaust, the story told from the point of a Jewish prisoner shows many other aspects of the topic. Of course, the hate Hitler had for the Jewish people, or the discrimination in his mind against them in that case, was a HUGE factor for bringing the story to where it is, but there are trivial fights that come in when people are fighting for survival and life is a race, and these fights can change a lot in a situation.
    A drastic example of trivial matters turning into major events that occurs is that Eliezer's father is beaten by his camp mates for his food while he is ill and dying. Maybe this can be seen as just for the other men in Elie's father's cabin who thought that stealing from a dying man to stay alive themselves would not be a bad thing, but one most likely only thinks that way only when his or her own life is in danger. By depriving the Jewish people of food and their homes, the Nazis have succeeded in turning them against each other without really even trying to do so, and this has turned into a hate for survival. There are many times when Elie himself feels that he should abandon his dying father so that he can save food for himself and loosen his burdens, and to even think about leaving your father proves that desperation brings with it selfishness and hate that can separate you from everyone else or simply make you an exact replica of the people around you. Even though Elie decides to stick with his father throughout, the death of his father is something that makes him wish he had left when he had the chance so that he would not have had to hold onto his burden. "But I had no more tears. And, in the depths of my being, in the recesses of my weakened conscience, could I have searched it, I might have found something like-free at last!" (pg. 106). Selfishness and desperation go hand-in-hand when it feels like there is nothing left to fight for but life, and they can both make one turn on his or her own kind, and to an extant, make him or her hate those he or she has to face to live.
    As for how this book turns out, it is not enough to say that experience changes a person, for good or for bad, but to also point out that change is very big. When Elie learns he is saved, at a time when one should be exploding with relief, this boy has nothing to go home to, and the only thing that sums up his whole ordeal is this frail body he sees when he looks into the mirror.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Sticking to One's Beliefs Until the End

Night by Elie Wiesel Chapters 5 through 6...


     Jon, even though in your last post you said hatred would be a very big theme in this book and it has been seen in and against the Jewish community before, these chapters show a bit more hope for the Jewish spirit. The hatred of the Nazis is not able to take away the beliefs of their Jewish prisoners, and this shows when the Jewish community comes together in the end for the celebration of the Jewish New Year. The will-power of the prisoners in these camps inspires the reader to know that discrimination against one's values is not something that should compel one to change his or her beliefs. It is good to be different as well as an individual right to follow through with your beliefs, and to see that a power such as the Nazis is not able to suppress a group of people from following through with their religion is exciting. One should never back-down from what he or she thinks is right just because someone is threatening him or her.
     The theme of holding onto one's values through thick and thin can be illustrated at an even deeper level since the choices of the main character affects how the reader may see this theme. Eliezer starts to think during the time of Jewish celebrations that nothing is true about the Jewish people being "God's chosen" since he has experienced so much hatred for his fellow Jewish. The young boy has been through so much, and he has started to lose hope for ever being free again, meaning that it won't be long until a lot of the other prisoners begin to drift away from their values as well. In fact, there are many within the camps already that say things which have made Elie doubt his beliefs in the first place, although these few haven't been abundant enough to stop the fasting of Yom Kippur. Elie's life becomes more and more lifeless as he starts to drift away from the idea of God, and he soon can be portrayed as a boy who expects nothing good to happen to him; his life drags on with nothing for him to look forward to but more torture, "Yet another last night. The last night at home, the last night in the ghetto, the last night in the train, and, now, the last night in Buna. How much longer were our lives to be dragged out from one 'last night' to another?" (pg. 79). Even though it is not yet said in these chapters, Elie's changing beliefs are most likely what makes his experience within the camps even worse since he has nothing to look forward to anymore. Even though people can argue that diminishing values are what keep the young boy's feet stuck to the ground, they may also turn out to be the reason he expects to die throughout his experiences in the camps. Elie dropped the thing that had gotten him stuck within the Nazi camps, and this is something that most would do, but those who fight until the end are the ones who die for a true cause, and Elie was not even able to stand up for his people as a living boy by separating with his religion because of the pain it had caused him.



Wednesday, February 8, 2012

The Holocaust's Horrific Judgments

Night by Elie Weisel Chapters 3 through 4...

    Jon, I totally agree with you that hate is a major theme in this book, especially since its story is based off of an event caused by discrimination. It never really occured to me before that the Jewish people hated each other during the time of the Holocaust bacause of the fact that they couldn't do anything for each other without endangering themselves. It is hard to imagine wanting to help someone but not being able to because of the danger it put one in, and in turn not only gaining guilt from that, but also the hatred of the person one let suffer. Hate is one of the many sad truths of life, and a person has to eventually except that it happens, but it is also something that only blossoms if given the opportunity to do so.
     A theme seen very much in this book that can be associated with hatred and discrimination is that of judging a book by its cover, especially within the context of killing those that don't look handy. Upon entering the Nazi camps, many Jewish people were sent away and separated from family just because they appeared to be weak and of no use to the officials there. Eliminating the most frail looking people was a way to narrow down the population of the camps to the toughest ones that wouldn't need as much to live off of while at the same time could get a lot of labor work done. The theme stated comes into play here since the officials of the camps don't really even have time to associate with the prisoners, or in that case couldn't care less, and so appearance is all they can judge by, even though there may be many prisoners killed that could have performed better quality work than those who were spared. It is still very bad to kill anyone nonetheless, but to get rid of one because of the body is not only a loss to the person pushed out of the way, but can be very costly to the one that got rid of him or her in the first place since intelligence, compassion, or physical strength could be at stake for both parties.
     Usually, the theme of judging a book by its cover is so that it makes the life of the one with the bad appearance easier, but accepting this theme is significantly important in this situation since both the judge and the judged loose something, especially when it comes to life or esteem. Women are thought to be weak just because of gender, and this theme applies here because taking the life of someone because gender would make her useless is plain wrong. Inequality because of gender is something that can be seen when the men and women of the Nazi camps are separated from one another, and this week's theme applies directly to this situation, the situation in which young Elie had to loose his mom because she was a woman. "'Men to the left! Women to the right!' Eight words spoken quietly, indifferently, without emotion. Eight short, simple words. Yet that was the moment when I parted from my mother." (pg. 27). 

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Night Post #1- Hatred

From the very beginning of this novel, I've found that hatred is going to be a very large element within the story. Not only Nazi hatred of the Jews, but Jewish hatred of the Nazis.  Once the Jews begin being deported from their countries, it seems like each group starts hating each other for different reasons.  Jews hated Nazis for the terrible acts committed unto themselves, Nazis hated Jews for being supposed swine and scum of the Earth,  and Jews hated their countrymen for standing by while they are rounded up like cattle and shipped off to work until their gruesome death.  In such dire and terrible circumstances,  it is no surprise to me that the different groups begin to hate each other. "It was from that moment that I began to hate them, and my hate is still the only link between us today.  They were our first oppressors.  They were the first of the faces of hell and death." (pg. 17)

However, within the Jewish population working at the camps, people grew closer and closer together.  It is interesting how these two emotions played such a huge part in people's lives during this time period.