Hope, Despair, And Memory By JD Salinger

The Hollow Hope by Gerald Rosenberg is based on one research question. That question is: Can the Court bring about significant social change? In examining this question Rosenberg presents two different views of the Court. The dynamic court view believes that the court is an excellent catalyst for social change while the constrained court view believe that there are constraints in place that prevent the court from making significant change. The constrained court believes that it is only when these constraints are lifted and certain conditions met that the Court can have an effect on social change.

Memories are important, they are a personal record of our past experiences, and could be called the history book for our life. In the poem "The Heroes You Had as a Girl", author Bronwen Wallace tells the story of a woman who meets her high school hero later in her life, reflects on her memories of him, and ultimately decides not to talk to him. The effect that this topic has on everyone is the knowledge that we can be captivated and let our memories control us, and by knowing that our memories hold that much power, it may make it more mentally efficient to make accurate, and personal decisions in a fraction of the time. The topic and overall meaning that this idea holds convey a message that resonates with the idea that memories are in fact the central hub of our decision making. People remembering memories can affect their perspective on their lives to such an extent, that they prefer to immerse their mind in their past memories rather than the current reality.

In the speech, “Hope, Despair, and Memory” Elie Wiesel uses diction and rhetorical devices to make his claim about how there are horrible crimes that has happened. Diction and rhetorical devices also creates the tone of the speech, which is serious. The tone that is developed is serious because the speech utilizes the phrase “... memory of evil will serve as a shield against evil… memory of death will serve as a shield against death.” This phrase’s meaning is that memories of ill-will and death will become information that we can learn not to do again. Another phrase that supports seriousness is, “... man would live in a permanent, paralyzing fear of death.” Wiesel is making the audience understand what the repercussions is for the fear of

Diction refers to Wiesel’s distinctive style of expression. He uses the words “murder” and “consumed” to describe how he feels. This accurately portrays how the camp had changed him. He no longer looked to God for answers. He felt alone from his first day in captivity. There was no freedom or happiness in his life anymore. Death became imminent and insignificant. He was surrounded by men and watched each one become nothing more than bone and flesh. But liberation came only with strength and endurance. Even those who were physically prepared didn’t necessarily make it. He repeats throughout the entire memoir the phrase “never shall I forget…” to emphasize the horror of the Holocaust.

When Elie arrives at the camps, the author begins to use the corpse as a symbol of a living person who is dead inside. This is how Elie begins to see himself and others as, the living dead. "From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me. The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me (Wiesel 109)." When Elie looks into the mirror he can not recognize what he has become. He thinks of himself as one of the others who died like his family or the millions of others slaughtered right before his eyes. He essentially becomes a useless body that works on the outside but is undoubtedly damaged on the inside. Wiesel also brings the story to life with imagery that stimulates all of the senses. He illustrates the horror of the crematories with vivid words that make the reader feel the sympathy he feels."Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky. Never shall I forget the flames that consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live.

To be an ethnic American is a culture all on its own. Hunger of memory by Richard Rodríguez gives an insight into the rarely viewed world. A person that no longer falls into either category of family or American community. Such an individual is stuck between two worlds, in which two different cultures collide yet form a rift through family, language and education.

After surviving the Holocaust, Elie writes down the things he experiences as a young boy during that time period. As Elie enters Birkenau holding his father’s hand, he claims, “Never shall I forget the small faces of children whose bodies I saw transform into smoke under a silent sky… Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God himself. Never.” (Wiesel 34). Upon his arrival at the concentration camp in Birkenau, Elie witnesses young children being burned alive in crematoriums. He asserts that he has seen events so horrid that the memory would stay embedded with him forever. As soon as he witnesses the death of countless people, Wiesel begins to see the world as one filled with cruelty and hatred, the exact opposite of what he learns in his Jewish studies. In the end of his memoir, Elie finds himself in the hospital after being liberated by American soldiers. Elie looks into the reflection of the mirror hanging on the wall and describes what he sees as, “From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me. The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me” (Wiesel 115). After experiencing such traumatic events, Wiesel refers to himself as a new person. The innocent and religious Elie slowly dies during the Holocaust. In his biographical memoir, Elie slowly changes his

The two poems “Never Shall I Forget” and “We Remember Them”, written by Elie Wiesel and Rabbi Sylvan Kamens, have their fair share of similarities and differences. These poems are both highly influenced by the Holocaust, the genocide of over 11 million people, 6 million of them being Jews, during World War II. In “Never Shall I Forget”, Elie Wiesel talks of his sufferings in a concentration camp and “We Remember Them” pass on the memory of those who died during the Holocaust. “Never Shall I Forget” and “We Remember Them” both have a shared theme of remembrance, but Elie Wiesel wrote of what he would rather forget than remember, whereas Rabbi Sylvan Kamens wrote of what he wishes to never forget.

As said by Audrey Hepburn; “Living is like tearing through a museum, not until later do you really start absorbing what you saw, thinking about it, looking it up in a book, and remembering - because you can’t take it in all at once.” In Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night, the Holocaust took place in an order of layers. As time passed, the extremity was increased each chapter he succumbed to. Elie expresses raw emotion in his memoir, Night, and leaves you in a complete, utter state of wonder and sadness. Not only this, but remembering and cherishing the importance of all the emotions from this time in history. In Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night, the theme of remembering is present before the Holocaust and in today’s society.

Forty-two years after entering the concentration camp for the first time, Elie Wiesel remarked, “Just as man cannot live without dreams, he cannot live without hope” (Nobel Lecture 1). This means a lot from someone who endured almost two years of the terror in the WWII concentration camps. During these two years, Elie endured the sadness of leaving his former life and faith behind, the pain of living off of scraps of bread, and the trepidation of the “selections”, where he almost lost his father. He watched the hanging of innocent people, was beat by Kapos and guards time after time, and marched in a death march right after having a foot surgery. Through all of this, he survived because he remained hopeful. Hope was all the Jewish people

Memory provides a sense of personal identity. Memories that were made from the past create the person that they have become today. It helps to ground judgments and with reasoning. As an illustration, one day a young girl was shopping at the mall with a group of friends and they deiced to steal a cute

F. Scott Fitzgerald understands that memory is a double-edged sword, and he illustrates this thought in two of his short stories, Babylon Revisited and Winter Dreams. In his story Babylon Revisited, the protagonist, Charles Wales, is tormented by memories of his past. His wife is dead, and his old friends won’t stop interfering in his life. His sister-in-law is basing her current ideas of him on the fact that he was an irresponsible person in the past, and it hurts his life greatly. Winter Dreams takes a slightly different approach. In this tale, the memories of the protagonist, Dexter Green, start off as pleasant but are later warped by new information. With these two works, Fitzgerald describes the problems that memories can cause in

Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.” The repetition of the phrase “Never shall I forget” really emphasises on and illustrated that what Wiesel is describing will be engraved in his memory forever, that it is impossible to forget. I also think that he wants to spread the word about what happened in the holocaust, raise awareness and make sure that nothing even remotely like it ever happens again.

In the short story, ‘For Esmé – With Love and Squalor’ by J.D Salinger; we see how inhumane people can treat others in times of war, and that those who did not fight did not really understand the brutality of war. Throughout the story, J.D Salinger brings in his own ideas about the war that he fought and uses motif’s to show us how people viewed the war versus how he viewed the war. The main motif of the story is letters. At the very beginning of the story we hear about a letter that ‘X’ has received. In the letter, X’s mother-in-law says, “…to please send her some cashmere yarn first chance I got away from “camp”.” (Salinger, pg.8). In the tone of her letter, we can see that she does not really think that what X is doing is too hard. She assumes that he can pick up yarn for her at any time, and she calls the war “camp”, when it was not like summer camp at all.

In “For Esme-With Love and Squalor” by J.D. Salinger, Sergeant X has a variety of emotional and spiritual changes throughout the short story. In the beginning, as he and several other soldiers prepare for battle, he encounters a young, adolescent girl by the name of Esme. X was overwhelmed by loneliness. He has been unable to care for and bond with anyone under the harsh disciplinary lifestyle of the Army. However, after having a meaningful conversation with Esme, he is temporarily relieved of this pain.