Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Abbott K: Second Response
The second portion of the novel, Night, shows truly what the followers of Judaism have to suffer through at the concentration camps. At these camps, they receive barely any food, and the food is barely edible itself. The food is a ration of bread and a bowl of soup, and the people are only fed twice a day. Also, the people that are kept are forced to work all day. It makes me wonder, how can these people live and stay healthy by working hard all day and receive very little food? The imagery in the novel is extremely strong. The text is very detailed to the point that the reader can picture every scene clearly just by viewing the words. The leaders seem to be nice most of the time, but when they start to get mad, the leaders prefer to unleash their anger on the prisoners. Elie describes, "Idek was on edge, he had trouble restraining himself. Suddenly, he exploded. The victim this time was my father....And he began beating him with an iron bar." (54) How can the leaders behave so horribly to the prisoners? Of course, the leaders aren't supposed to be friends with the prisoners, but the unnecessary violence toward the prisoners isn't right at all. It's not just the leaders either, because the prisoners can be rude to other prisoners as well. One day, and friendly prisoner named Franek notices the gold crown in Elie's mouth. After seeing the gold, Franek wants the tooth, but Elie tells him that he won't give the tooth to Franek. Greed quickly consumes Franek and he starts to threaten Elie. For revenge, Franek begins to beat Elie's father in order to make Elie give in so his father won't be beaten anymore. Elie's father tells him not to give up, but not being able to watch his father's pain any longer, Elie gives Franek the tooth. After receiving what he wants, Franek becomes friendly again. It is amazing at how the men change so quickly when they receive what they want, and what they will do in order to get it. As the novel progresses, Elie begins to reveal individual deaths at the camp. Some of the men attempt to steal extra food, and get caught in the process. As a punishment, the men are hanged, and the whole camp is forced to watch and stare in the eyes of the dead man's face. One man spoke out as he was hanged, "Long live liberty! My curse on Germany! My curse! My-" (62) As they were about to die, these men didn't cry. Instead the stood bravely and heroic, and they let death take them. It is very unfortunate that the men in the Holocaust have to suffer so greatly, and from reading up to the point I'm in, it will be very joyous and triumphant when the prisoners are free.
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Through your post, I can tell that you have a clear understanding of the novel. It is amazing to me the measures some that these men, such as the leaders, will go to possess something.. like Elie's tooth. Although Elie put up such a fight, he was in a vulnerable state and couldn't bear seeing his fathers pain anymore. This contradicts itself, however, because Elie shows no emotion on several occasions where his father has been beaten. This shows just how mentally unstable Elie really is. By asking questions and angrily reacting to the text shows the connection you share with the book.
ReplyDeleteThe rations they were given were horribly small and un morally just. To answer your question, how do they stay healthy- the answer is simply they don't. That is thereason the death rate was so high-they were forced to do hard labor all day and then barely given enough food, proper shelter, or sanitary living conditions. Both the leaders and the prisoners showed their "true colors" throughout this event. Prisoners shouldhave banned to gether instead of against each other. These camps defintly brought out the worst in everyone. Also, I believe you are right when you say men will go to great lengths for what they want. Every prosoner was alone, if they wanted to survive had to learn to do that on their own so this "bullying" had to have occured very often.
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