Night
(Wiesel, Elie)
When a group of people experience trauma the individual loses concern with material possessions, with loved ones, and finally with oneself. If Elie Wiesel?s ?Night? celebrates anything, it?s the triumph of an individual?s concern for oneself, over any feeling of love or empathy they could have for someone else. Its the triumph of the human spirit.
At the beginning of the book, Elie?s father buries gold in the basement of his home in the Jewish ghetto, in preparation for an exodus. Hungarian police take the first group of Jews out of the ghettoes. Though Wiesel mentions knives and plates the concerns of the Jews here, are probably for objects that would aid them and their loved ones in surviving. This is supported by Wiesel?s description of these objects in the place of their arrangement, similar to an open tomb. It is later revealed that Eli?s father has either taken a knife and spoon with him or obtained them by some other means. When he first thinks that he has been selected to die, he tries to give them to his son (as he himself will have no use for them). When a boy tries to take Eli?s shoes in exchange for a ration of bread and the promise of other shoes, Eli refuses. These incidents show that when traumatized in a way that threatens the individual?s life the only material things of value are those that can help preserve life.In the barracks of Gleiwitz, Rabbi Eliahou looks for his son. Eli had seen him running at his side but he forgot to tell the Rabbi when he questioned him. On the wagon on the way to Buchenwald, Berman workmen threw pieces of bread into the wagon to entertain themselves with the spectacle of a dozen starving men fighting over it. An old man comes up with a piece of the bread and eating some of it tells his son to get off, hes killing him. After the son kills his father for the bread, two other men pounce on him and kill him for it. www.valiantdeath.com --- for wonderful experimental music/ art/ zines
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