What Is The Moral Dilemma In Elie Wiesel's Dawn

In the novel Dawn, by Elie Wiesel, the protagonist Elisha struggles throughout the night with the moral dilemma he faces over the task of killing English Captain John Dawson. In the beginning Elisha is determined, selfish and intelligent. His human potential is developing and he is trying to self-fabricate his morality. He grows as a knower and respects the innate dignity of others, but throughout the novel some of his decisions steer him away from his morality. After he meets Gad and joins The Movement, he abandons some of his morals and becomes more irresponsible as dawn is nearing. He finally makes the decision to leave his morals and conscience behind and kills John Dawson, abandoning his responsibility. Elisha’s future, directed by his …show more content…
Elisha has failed at fabricating his own morality because he is just following orders from other people in The Movement. When he takes orders from the others, he is trying not to think for himself (fearing what might happen if he disobeys; “off the rack” morality). Elisha has failed to move from “me” to “we” because while he isn’t faced with the task of killing John Dawson for himself, he is doing it for something he believes in, even though he knows it is morally and ethically wrong. He leaves his ghosts behind when he goes downstairs and in a way is leaving his morals behind. When he sees his ghosts, they are all people he has been impacted by. They are all people that taught him something and left a mark. Since these are all people that have affected him, they are also people who helped him build up his self-fabricated morality. He knows killing John Dawson is wrong and yet he still goes through with it. He pushes away the guilt and uses excuses to justify murder (e.g.; Gad saying “don’t torture yourself, this is war”). Before Elisha goes downstairs, there’s a tiny crack in Gad which Elisha sees. The tiny twitch in Gad’s mouth is a crack, which can almost be looked through. It’s as if Gad still has some of his own morality but is using hatred and war as an excuse to hide it. Elisha tries to hate John Dawson because that is the only way he can justify murder. When Elisha goes to visit him, John Dawson takes the place of his conscience by asking Elisha questions that Elisha should be asking himself. Since he has left his ghosts upstairs, John Dawson acts as them instead and questions Elisha. When John Dawson asks Elisha if he hates him, Elisha admits to himself that he doesn’t. He wants to hate him as that would give him a reason to kill him. He thinks how love, hate, faith and war can justify anything. Using hate as an excuse to kill shows how