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Blog Post #3 - Vincent

The fight in Night between Elie and time was powerful and was intriguing to read throughout the book. This fight between Elie, himself and time whether for time  to stop so that he doesn’t have to see what comes next, or Time to speed up to end the infinite suspense in the dead of night, or to kill himself so he doesn’t have to experience the future that happens either way: “If I was going to kill myself, this was the time”(33). That is a very powerful theme to be portrayed with such a powerful event that it is woven into. Time also is more of the “antagonist” of this memoir than the Nazis are, because when looking at how much Elie struggles with the prospect of the future and how he makes it through, or whether he faces it at all, really outlines the way time seems so against Elie than with him (For that matter Time seems to eventually turn on everybody, even the Nazis): “What if it really were the last day?”(66). However, at the end of Elie’s days at Auschwitz Elie said, that the people there were: “Suddenly able to overcome time and space, to will them into submission” (Wiesel 66). Those people fought so hard and gave up so much that they seemed to conquer Time and end its reign of terror over the people of this earth hopefully, once and for all. Time instead of fighting people face to face causes people to fight with themselves, question themselves, and lose their motivation to fight, to survive. The Nazis did horrible things to innocent people, no doubt. However, they were forced between fear and the time they had to face it or allow it to control them and, well, they lost. Hitler exploited their fears and gave them one choice and no time to make it, then once they realized what they agreed to they couldn’t get out. That is why time is the 'antagonist' of this survival story, because Time caused all the horrible things that happened, all the terribly wrong dicitions to be made, and made the whole world blame somebody else for the whole thing.

P.S.
This doesn't mean that I think the Germans are innocent or shouldn't be blamed. All I am pointing out is that the whole thing wasn't totally their fault, just Time and Hitler.
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Comments

  1. AnonymousOctober 22, 2018 at 4:09 PM

    Vincent,

    This is a very interesting theme you have discovered. Your point that time was an "antagonist" was startling, but true. However, I am not entirely sure I understand when you say:

    "Those people fought so hard and gave up so much that they seemed to conquer Time and end it’s reign of terror over the people of this earth hopefully once and for all. "

    I think you mean that the Jews were racing against Time to survive until the liberators came. Am I correct. Overall, this is a unique and striking theme that you have found.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousOctober 22, 2018 at 4:47 PM

    I think you have very powerful quotes and a strong vocabulary in this blog. I did not really think about these quotes much but after reading each quote now, it made me stop and think how depressing and horribly all of the victims of the holocaust must have been dealing with. Overall, I agree with your thoughts and reasoning of why these quotes are so powerful.

    ReplyDelete

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