Different works can often share a common theme. Three works in particular have a similarity within their main ideas, The Book Thief, Night, and Schindler’s List. These books and movie all take place during the 1940’s in Nazi Germany, each with a different point of view. Individual identity versus conformity to social expectations however, is a theme that makes these three works similar. What is meant by this theme is that one will go against or along with the beliefs of everyone else to either do what they believe to be right or to fit in with everyone else. These three works all share the recurrent theme of individual identity versus conformity to social expectations. Elie Wiesel’s Night has many themes present within each page, and …show more content…
Oskar Schindler is apart of the Nazi Party, and he starts a business with the help from a Jewish accountant to make extra money during the war. Though Schindler starts the movie out as a selfish, greedy business owner, his horrific experiences cause him to inherit a growing respect for Jews, and he puts both himself and others in jeopardy to save them. Spielberg makes the theme of individual identity versus conformity to social expectations apparent with the use of a bildungsroman. One time when this is proven is when Schindler was told that his factory must start making ammunition for the war efforts. Though he does not want to contribute to the war efforts in any way, he must have a product going to the war, or he would be shut down. To compensate for this problem, Schindler goes out of his way to buy bullets from a separate company to pass as his own. This allows the Jews to keep a job, and stay out of concentration camps, but it also keeps him in business. Another time when this theme is shown is during the last mass killing of Jews before Germany’s surrender, Schindler’s workers are to be taken to death. Using the excuse that he does not want to train new workers, Schindler spends most of his fortune to buy all of his workers back. When Schindler is forced to go into hiding, he beats on himself for not selling his belongings to buy more Jews, and to save their lives. Oskar Schindler went against all social conformity to do what he believed was right, and in the end, he ended up saving over 6000 lives
The movie –Schindler’s List– is based off the true story of the saving of 1,200 Jews by Oskar Schindler. In the beginning of the movie, Schindler employed Jews from the Kraków Ghetto to work in his newly established enamelware factory in Poland. Spielberg portrays Schindler as “simply another Nazi who regards the killing of Jewish slaves as a senseless business practice. Although he is seen
Both set in the time period of World War II, Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief and Elie Wiesel’s Night tell a story revolving around the events of the Holocaust. However, each book tells a very different story and uses different word choices to describe their story. The diction used in the young-adult fiction novel The Book Thief and the nonfiction memoir Night drew a sharp contrast when compared to each other, highlighting the intentions of each book.
Both The Book Thief and Night revolve around the idea of the Holocaust. With this, the reader is able to see the contrast between two different people at the time. Night by Elie Wiesel provides the perspective from the inside of concentration camps, while The Book Thief by Markus Zusak provides the perspective from those living in Nazi Germany. By reading both perspectives, the reader is given the thoughts and feelings of both people connecting all people of the time period, coming to the conclusion that all people were suffering loss of faith in God and
Oskar Schindler’s identity drastically changes from the beginning to the end of the movie. At first, Schindler was a greedy, selfish, and rich man, who was a member of the Nazi party and profited from the war. He also was a womanizer who constantly cheated on his wife. He only cared about making money and he only hired Jewish workers because they were cheaper. He saved his workers initially because he did not want to pay to train other workers and protected them since he believed that their welfare impacted his business. He saw Jewish people differently than other Germans, he saw them as workers, and he inadvertently developed a reputation for kindness. He did not do this at first to be a
Thus, it can be concluded that in the beginning of the movie Schindler does not fully grasp the tragedy at hand, and consequently does nothing attempt to aid the Jews. Schindler's realizations of the horrors of the holocaust begin in one scene near the middle of the film. During this infamous turning point of the movie, Schindler, on top of a barren hill, traces the path of a young and helpless Jewish girl who wanders haphazardly through the streets of a devastated camp. Her lone image personalizes the slaughter. Schindler tries to track her progress as she invisibly makes her way, aimless and alone, past the madness and chaos in the street - a woman is machine-gunned behind her. He loses sight of the small figure as she walks behind a building, but then he glimpses her again, walking by a file of Jews being herded down a sidewalk. During the roundup, a German soldier fires at a single-file lineup of men, killing five with one bullet. Distressed and stricken by the nightmare below and the plight of the little girl in red, Schindler sees her entering one of the empty apartment buildings. There, she climbs the stairs and crawls under a bed for cover in a ransacked room. Her safety is only temporary, for later she will be hunted down and cold-heartedly murdered, forgotten to the world, destroyed by her own people.
Oskar Schindler grew up in a prosperous Catholic family with all the privileges money could buy. He grew up to be a German industrialist, spy, and a member of the Nazi Party, who outwitted Hitler and the Nazis to save more Jews than any other from the deathly events of World War॥. With the help of his wife, Emilie Schindler, Oskar Schindler saved the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his ammunition and enamelware factories, spending millions bribing the SS, and eventually risking his life to rescue the Schindler-Jews (“The Oscar Schindler Story”)
Schindler's List is one of the most powerful movies of all time. It presents the indelible true story of enigmatic German businessman Oskar Schindler who becomes an unlikely saviour of more than 1100 Jews amid the barbaric Nazi reign. A German Catholic war profiteer, Schindler moved to Krakow in 1939 when Germany overran Poland. There he opens an enamelware factory that, on the advice of his Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern, was staffed by Jews from the nearby forced labour camp at Plaszow. Schindler's factory prospered though his contacts with the Nazi war machine and its local representatives, as well as his deft skill on the black market. Then, somewhere along the way, Schindler's devotion to self-interest was
“The tiny seed knew that in order to grow, it needed to be dropped in dirt, covered with darkness, and struggle to reach the light” (Sandra Kring). In the book Night by Elie Wiesel and in the film Schindler’s List directed by Steven Spielberg, the main characters, Elie Wiesel in Night and Oskar Schindler in Schindler’s List both show major growth throughout the two stories. Elie Wiesel was just a young innocent boy when he was uprooted from his home and taken to concentration camps to be killed just for being a Jew. Going into the camp, he was immediately separated from his mother and sisters and although he was able to stay with his father till the end, he came out of the camp alone and had more of a mindset that the world is a very inhumane place sometimes. Oskar Schindler was a German industrialist and member of the Nazi party, very inconsiderate of others and cared very much about the profit portion of the war, Schindler ended up caring about the Jews and saved over 1000 lives in the Holocaust. Weisel and Schindler witness the Holocaust from two different places in the war and the events in the Holocaust cause them both to change and grow as a person substantially in different ways.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like if you and your family were forced to move out of your home and leave everything behind. Well this is what happened to the Jews in the holocaust. One thing that the book Night by Elie Wiesel and the movie Schindler's List directed by Steven Spielberg is they both had some form of violence whether visual or descriptive. One major difference they had was how the main characters survived. Another key difference from both the movie and the book is the main character's motivation.
Throughout the novel, a miniscule act of heroism goes a long way. While working for Oskar Schindler, a Nazi, at his factory, Schindler portrays kindness. Leyson informs us that, ‘A true Nazi observing such an action, such humane treatment of a Jew, would have murdered them both’ (141). By simply making
The character Death, in Zusack’s The Book Thief says: “That’s the sort of thing I’ll never know- what humans are capable of.”
Schindler was a rescuer of the jews because he was not a fan of how they were treated. When asked why he saved them he replied by saying “I knew the people who worked for me. When you know people, you have to behave towards them like human beings.” Unlike the nazis and Hitler, Oscar Schindler saw jews as normal human beings and did not use them and make them do manual labor just to survive and not be killed. He did make them work just so the nazis did not come in and just kill all of them or take them back to a concentration camp and abuse them. The condition Oscar Schindler had was when he had the jews working for him that he didn’t want them to make any of the bullets functional and allow them to be fired and kill
Oskar Schindler faced many conflicts in his life. The main conflict he faced was overcoming the Nazis and saving over one thousand Jewish People. Schindler, with out a job at the time, joined the Nazi Party and followed on the heels of the SS when the Germans invaded Poland. This is when Schindler took over two previously Jewish owned companies that dealt with the manufacture and sales of enamel kitchenware products and opened up his own enamel shop right outside of Krakow near the Jewish ghetto. There, he employed mostly Jewish workers, which saved them from being deported to labor camps. Though twice the Gestapo arrested him, he got released because of his many connections and with many bribes. Most
Watching Schindler's list I decided to focus on Oskar Schindler. Throughout the movie Schindler personal emotions change on the war. In the beginning we see that it was a good thing for business that nothing else mattered as long as he made money. When Jews would come up he wouldn't care about them because he knew he could manipulate them and earn more money since they needed him. Schindler didn't really care for the Jews and what would happen to them. We see that Schindler only concern is that his business profits in the war. His concern for going to parties were to make connection that would better his money earning business. Money was his only concern which is why he went out seeking a jew. Since having a jew made it so they could be payed less than a normal person and they would be to scared to not do work. If he got a Jew it would earn him more money than hiring a German accountant. After getting an accountant he goes and seek workers for his factory. The workers are Jews since they don't need to be payed to be working. We later learn that his wife influences him with making business and wanting to succeed. He came from a place where he had nothing and is just beginning to make it. Hes making so much money he doesn't know what to do and he thanks the war for that. With his business doing so well he starts to care about his workers. He cares about them because he needs them to continue making the money.He starts really caring about his accountant Stern he makes sure he
[War] brings out the worst in people. Never the good, always the bad. Even in the midst the devastation of a national genocide, where one race turned against another in hate, good people existed and worked to counteract the hate through love and compassion. Oskar Schindler was one of these people. World War II provided him the means to become a very wealthy and powerful man, yet he did not exploit the Jews like many other businessmen during his time. He used his money and power to save thousands. Much can be learned from what happened during the holocaust and what Schindler did to save thousands of Jews.