Popular Literature : Mirroring Culture In Popular Novels

The Wiesel family had been deported from Sighet and taken to the Auschwitz-Birkeanu camp, where all deportees were put into two different lines, males and females. This is where Elie and his father were separated from the rest of their family. It is after they realized that they had survived the first selection that Elie, looking back, says: "Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky. Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes. Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never" (P34). In this quote, the author applies visual, auditive and olfactory imagery to portray the theme of the horrors of war. Here, Elie reflects upon his experiences and how these have permanently marked him, making him feel haunted by such memories. On the other hand, the reader feels heartbroken and hopeless, seeing as Wiesel will have to shape his life around the impact that the camps had on

“Keep Memory Alive” is an award acceptance speech delivered by Elie Wiesel. The speaker recalled the events and personal experiences during the unfortunate and penetrating event known as the Holocaust. Wiesel gave an example of a little young boy asking his father: “Who would allow such crimes to be committed? How could the world remain silent?” (Wiesel, 544). That young boy turns out to be Wiesel. Wiesel proceeds to emphasize his belief that everyone should remember the significant events in history and learn to speak up when necessary. Therefore, it is important to commemorate history in order to prevent society from becoming ignorant and often times, repeating identical mistakes as our ancestors did.

As seen through the speech, Elie Wiesel is a strong believer of individual experiences; however, his questions arise about people’s indifference once his audience has heard of Wiesel’s traumatic experience. Often time, Wiesel uses rhetorical questions as a way to emphasize and sir thought. When asking, “Does it mean that we have learned from our past? Does it mean that society has changed? Has the human being become less indifferent and more human?” (Paragraph 21). Elie Wiesel demonstrates a self evaluation on the audience. The intended purpose, indifference within people, is openly enforced through self evaluation.

Imagine you are taken away from all of your family, except for your father, at 15-years-old. You are forced into concentration camps, surviving hard working conditions and low food supply. And why you might ask? Because someone decided that your race determines what your future will be. But this is not a story of racism, it is a story of conformity. The SS officers listened to a leader, which some of these officers being Jews themselves. They had to kill or be killed. The Jewish peoples were weak and threatened, but frankly conforming was best for their situation. Elie Wiesel supports this through his experiences. In Night, Elie says “For the survivor who chooses to testify, it is clear: his duty is to bear witness for the dead and for the living. He has no right to deprive future generations of a past that belongs to our collective memory. To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.” After surviving the Holocaust, Eliezer does just that. He was a witness for those who survived; He told those after him what happened in a first-hand account. In Night, Eliezer Wiesel shows how conformity is not always and bad thing, as sometimes it can save your life at times when individuality could get you killed.

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.

In the text this week we learned about different cultures and the different behaviors in these cultures. In

Throughout human history, there has been many horrible and tragic moments involving famine, death and war. In that long line of history, there is however one moment that can’t be challenged to none other and that is World War 2: The rise of Nazi power and the slaughtering of many Jews. Many Jewish people suffered during those times and not many survived. Few of the people who did survive however, managed to write about their experiences and morals they had during World War 2, sharing their ideas to the world. A survivor and author of one of these books, Elie Wiesel, inscribed many of his morals and ideas in his writing using many literary terms such as tone, mood, characterization, diction, and even dialogue to portray them as themes in his

The purpose of a story is not solely just to share lessons and truths about human nature but to also share stories of the past. Recognizing history and the knowledge acquired through stories is crucial in growing as an individual and as an entire society. People may be inclined to forget awful wars or events of the past. However, the act of forgetting these stories is an effort to avoid confronting the terrors and mistakes of the past. For instance, in Night, Elie Wiesel’s purpose in writing his memoir on his experiences of the Holocaust and in the death

In her classic work Patterns of Culture (1934), Ruth Benedict used the terms “apollonian” and “dionysian” to describe:

Judge Paul Heath Till’s essay “Morals, Manners, Customs, and Public Perception” has a very unique structure that helps the effectiveness of the author’s argument. By stating the problem, how the problem began, why the problem is important, giving definitions, citing sources, explaining his personal beliefs, and even giving advice, the author makes the structure of his essay very different and effective.

Throughout life, in any society we develop a sense to conform and adjust to our surroundings but why? Our values in our society determines our norms and why we do the things we do. I recently sought out to break these social conformities that violated the values, and norms we hold as a society. Every society is different and, in every society there are different and similar values, norms, sanctions folkways, and mores. Breaking them up and analyzing them we began to understand why these terms and values are so important to us.

As we all have observed, throughout history each culture or society has unique norms that are acceptable to that group of people. Therefore, to establish and come to the acceptance of these basic norms, each society must develop its’ own strategies and techniques to encourage the fundamentals of behavior, which is clear in our modern society. Most do assume that everyone in a society will follow and respect such norms. However, some tend to deviate from the adequate norms and demonstrate deviant behavior. Nevertheless, we are inclined to ask ourselves, why do people decide to violate such important standards of living?

Within any culture lies an array of definitive demeanors and actions that are deemed socially adequate and inadequate. Depending on the distinguishing behavior of a given individual and the society that they live in, there are invisible “laws” that prevent people from acting a certain way. If the individual’s behavior is adverse to the superior, predominant norms of their society, the actions of that individual are considered to be deviant. Social deviance in shown in a variety of dissimilar faces: within physical appearance, actions done to oneself and others, and religious groups.

In Elie Wiesel's lecture entitled “Hope, Despair, and Memory”, he states, “Remembering is a noble and necessary act.” I think it is important to remember the good and the bad I have experienced in my life because both the good and bad will help to shape my future. I have experienced mostly good things in my life but there are also bad things that have happened to me. I've never experienced anything as bad as Elie Wiesel’s traumatic experience in Auschwitz but I have experienced and sadness on a trip I took over the summer. I have learned that it is important to try and never forget my past memories because past experiences will determine the acts of my future. In my life, I have experienced my different things in the past that have influenced my actions for the future. The main experience that I will always remember and that has changed the way I view things was from my summer trip to Wanblee, South Dakota on the Pine Ridge Reservation. I learned on the reservation that it is important to give back to