How do creative works help us understand real-world events? Discuss in reference to your novel and WWI.
Creative works provide an extensive insight into past and ongoing world events. The authentic experience of an author becomes ours as we walk alongside them on their journey. In particular, the book Night, written by Elie Wiesel, demonstrates this. As a young boy he personally witnessed the horrors of the Holocaust during World War II, and his memoir takes the reader through an overwhelming experience of loss, sacrifice and hope. We see through his haunting memories how prisoners lived in constant fear of death, the vulnerability of families in desperate situations, and how the Holocaust impacted one’s identity and life.
Fear of death is …show more content…
Elie Wiesel shows this in the best way possible. He and his father arrived in Buchenwald from Gleiwtz. The prisoners are ushered into their blocks. The next day, Elie woke up to realise that he had lost his father during the night. He began to look for him. In the novel, a thought pricks his conscience. “If only I didn’t find him”. If only I were relieved of this responsibility, I could use all my strength to fight for my own survival, to take care only of myself.” (Wiesel, p.106). This conveys that Elie found it burdensome to constantly care for his father. He kept his frustration hidden because he felt it was his duty to do so as a family. Elie’s value of family, although still present, becomes a heavy or even dangerous weight in the most desperate of times. In the end, after his father died, he confessed, “And deep inside me, if I searched the recesses of my feeble consciousness, I might have found something like: Free at last!...” (Wiesel, p.112). Elie was relieved that he could finally be free of his father. This startling confession is simply the truth of his situation, one many would have hesitated to confront. This honesty that Elie Wiesel shared with us is valuable. We understand how the harsh conditions of the concentration camps strain familial bonds and reshape individual priorities. Through the changes we see in Elie, we learn that real-world events shape the victims in unpredictable
Creative works provide an extensive insight into past and ongoing world events. The authentic experience of an author becomes ours as we walk alongside them on their journey. In particular, the book Night, written by Elie Wiesel, demonstrates this. As a young boy he personally witnessed the horrors of the Holocaust during World War II, and his memoir takes the reader through an overwhelming experience of loss, sacrifice and hope. We see through his haunting memories how prisoners lived in constant fear of death, the vulnerability of families in desperate situations, and how the Holocaust impacted one’s identity and life.
Fear of death is …show more content…
Elie Wiesel shows this in the best way possible. He and his father arrived in Buchenwald from Gleiwtz. The prisoners are ushered into their blocks. The next day, Elie woke up to realise that he had lost his father during the night. He began to look for him. In the novel, a thought pricks his conscience. “If only I didn’t find him”. If only I were relieved of this responsibility, I could use all my strength to fight for my own survival, to take care only of myself.” (Wiesel, p.106). This conveys that Elie found it burdensome to constantly care for his father. He kept his frustration hidden because he felt it was his duty to do so as a family. Elie’s value of family, although still present, becomes a heavy or even dangerous weight in the most desperate of times. In the end, after his father died, he confessed, “And deep inside me, if I searched the recesses of my feeble consciousness, I might have found something like: Free at last!...” (Wiesel, p.112). Elie was relieved that he could finally be free of his father. This startling confession is simply the truth of his situation, one many would have hesitated to confront. This honesty that Elie Wiesel shared with us is valuable. We understand how the harsh conditions of the concentration camps strain familial bonds and reshape individual priorities. Through the changes we see in Elie, we learn that real-world events shape the victims in unpredictable