<p>Hello! It would be appreciated if some of you guys could look over my essay before I turn it in. Fee free to C&C. I added so much stuff into it that it’s gotten to a point where I myself cannot stand to read through it. So enjoy! </p>
<p>The prompt is: Think about the novel, Night, and the film, Schindlers List. In a 3 5 page essay, analyze how the author/director uses one or two literary/film techniques (characterization, symbols, and/or themes) to achieve his purpose in the telling of the story. </p>
<p>Some more info: The book “Night” is by a survivor of the Holocaust and the movie “Schindler’s List” is about a Nazi businessman who saves the lives of thousands of Jews.</p>
<p>I hope I was clear enough. Now for the essay:</p>
<p>Night/Schindler’s List GPT </p>
<pre><code>The year was 1945; the Holocaust was a time of darkness in the chapter of humanity. Over six million Jews were murdered by the hands of the German people. Six million is an enormous number of people. Imagine Seattle. It has 563,374 people living there. Compared to the amount people who died in the Holocaust, that is over ten times the size of Seattle. Two people took the liberty to create works of art from this tragedy. One name was Elie Wiesel. The other is Steven Spielberg. The first one, Elie Wiesel, wrote a book about his experience inside the concentration camps. His purpose was to tell the people of the world the horrors of what the Germans did, and to make sure it never happened again. Spielberg’s purpose of making his movie, Schindler’s List, was to tell us viewers the story of Oskar Schindler and how good can triumph over evil even in the toughest times. Both men had good intentions, and they used characterization, themes, and symbols to convey the point across.
Characterization is used to get the point across can be seen very clearly in Schindler’s List. Spielberg introduces the main character in a clever way. He starts his movie with a scene where countless Jews are labeled as to whether they are essential workers or not. Spielberg then has the movie jump to a scene where an unknown man is living quite comfortably. The camera scrolls up revealing the face of a man pinning a Nazi Swastika pin onto his clothes. You can immediately guess that the man is up to no good from previous knowledge of Nazi jerks. This man is in fact, Schindler. Spielberg then has the movie jump to where Schindler sits at a one-person table in a nightclub. It can also be noted here on how Spielberg uses the theme of black and white to further his point. The lighting on Schindler’s face is darkness. Half of his face is in the darkness, which means that he is probably a sinister man with many tricks up his sleeves. This ties into characterization quite wonderfully because of how Spielberg wants to display Schindler as an evil man. This sinister looking man is a great contrast to the end of the movie where he pays an arm and a leg to ensure the safety of his current Jewish factory workers. He cares for the Jewish because of how he witnessed the murder of a town. Spielberg has Schindler reconsider due to that event. This is to show that not only that there is good in every evil, but that people did take a stand. Schindler did not do this all by himself. If it were not for his accountant Stern; whom had been faithful to Schindler ever since he had met him, the daring actions that were taken to save the Jews might have never seen the light of day. Elie Wiesel on the other hand, writes in a sense, an autobiography. This book is called Night. In it, he does an extremely well job of characterizing himself. From the start of the book, he describes himself as a very religious child. He starts off the book saying I believed profoundly. During the day I Studied the Talmud, and at night I ran to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the Temple1. He had aspired to find his inner self by learning the Jewish Kabbalah. Elie Wiesel characterizes this because he wants to make a huge contrast with the second half of the book. The contrast is to further his point on just how terrible the entire event was. A lorry drew up at the pit and delivered its load little children, babies! Yes, I saw it saw it with my own eyes 2.Throughout the book, he describes himself witnessing many terrible events like the hanging of a angelic pipel and the destruction of babies by being thrown into a fire pit. Elie had characterized himself in such a way that it seemed that he was the most innocent child in the world, so when he sees those, his faith in the one true God vanishes (For the first time, I felt revolt rise up in me. Why should I bless His name? The Eternal, Lord of the universe, the All-Powerful and Terrible, was silent. What had I to thank Him for?3). However, his faith comes back to him anyways when his father is dying (My God, Lord of the Universe, give me strength 4). Elie probably wrote it like this because he wanted to reveal the evils of the Holocaust even more. He goes as far as to describe himself as a corpse staring back at him when he looks in the mirror for the first time in the years he spent in the camp. This is to show the readers how damaging the whole ordeal was. In a sense, nobody came out alive, yet they were.
Incidentally, all of Elie can actually be vaguely summarized in the first four pages of this book. Elie purposely included the lovable Moshie the Beadle at the very beginning to foreshadow the events about to unfold. Moshie the Beadle was a homeless man, but had deep roots within the Jewish teachings. One day the Nazis ordered him to a camp where he had made his escape back to Sighet. He then, was able to warn everyone of the looming threat. Unfortunately, this did not mean they listen to him. No matter how much he warned, nobody seemed to care. Eventually he had grown tired. Elie described Moshie as a man who had dreamy eyes, and a man who liked to sing a tune5. This however, changes dramatically. Elie describes on pages 4 and 5 in his book on how Moshie no longer had any joy in his eyes, and no longer sang6. This was after his adventures in the death camps. Elie may have included Moshie like this to predict the future as well. This is as if Elie saying, If I wrote the book called Night, and nobody listened again, the whole cycle would repeat.
As previously mentioned Schindler used the theme of black and white pretty well to further his point in characterization. However, this is not the only purpose it has in the film. Spielberg uses color for the candle that go out at the beginning of the movie where a Jewish family is praying. The candle represents hope, and that it has gone out as the candle did because of the fact that everyone was being herded out by the Nazis. However, another candle is re-lit when Schindler gives a Rabbi permission to prepare for the Sabbath. This is to show that the Jewish people have a little bit of their faith back.
Another instance of color in the black and white film is the girl who wears a great red coat during the liquidation of the town7. Spielberg puts her in that place because it would appear that the girl has some hope. He also does this so that the audience can remember her when later in the movie she is dead and carted away to the great pits of fire. That is to show just how terrible the Holocaust was, and that the Nazis had killed hope. Elie Wiesel on the other hand, uses symbols as well. In the book, whenever a terrible event was about to occur, he would discreetly slip in the word night right before the event. Night had fallen. That evening we went to bed early. My Father said Sleep well, children. Its not until the day after tomorrow, Tuesday.8. Elie uses this because when people think of night time, they usually think of darkness. Therefore, it would be logical to assume that his usage of night is for dark times. Another symbol he uses is fire. Fire is not used as much as the word night, but it still has some important values. Fire! I can see a fire! I can see a fire!9. This phrase is said by none other than Madame Schacter (a mother who had just lost her husband to the Nazis) while on the way to the ghetto. Elie uses this because he wanted to show the fearful power of the Nazis to get his point across that the Nazis were terrifying enough to even get Madame Schacter to go crazy.
Along with characterization and symbols, Elie and Spielberg use a great deal of themes geared towards their respective works of art. Elies themes seem like they are geared toward making us do some personal thinking and to make us feel bad enough so that it would actually prevent us from repeating history. One theme Elie uses is the lack of Resistance. Using this theme, he indirectly describes how there was no form of resistance inside the camp. The Nazis had scared the Jewish people enough to the point where nobody would dare to interfere with them in the fear of being burned inside a furnace or of being shot through the head. Elie does this to display how fearful the people were, and
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<p>of why we must never let this happen again. At the beginning of the book that a group of young people were being hasty and wanted to rebel when they learned of Auschwitzs purpose. However, the older people told them not to because they did not want to cause more trouble and death. This all ties into how Elie is expressing the sheer amount of fear the people had in them, and just how terrible it was. Just think about it. It was so terrible that six million people did not dare go against their enemy. Another theme Elie uses is mans inhumanity to other men. Elie attacks peoples emotions with this too. He makes sure to detail events where men do terrible things to other men. He details that it is wrong for people to do terrible things to people of the same race. One time during a train ride to a concentration camp, a boy called Meir killed his own father for a miniscule piece of bread10. This is to display savagery and to cause the readers to think that they would not ever do something like that. Think about it. When reading the book, did you think that Boy, I wouldnt do that to my own father? </p>
<pre><code> On the other hand, Spielberg takes a completely different approach to the themes. He does not aim to use themes to bribe people to not repeat history. He instead uses them to explain his central purpose, which is to describe that in every evil there is good. One of themes in Schindlers List is the triumph of good over evil. Spielberg has this as a theme because it is to show that all hope is not lost. For example, Goeth is a Nazi camp overseer in the movie. He was a man who liked to shoot any Jew at any time. Goeth groans and takes the gun from him and puts it to the woman’s head. [Calmly to her Goeth says]. I’m sure you’re right. He fires.11 The sheer amount of evil displayed was overwhelming, especially when shown on the big screen where you see the person’s head explode into a black bloody mess. This happens every day with Goeth. He gets up in the morning and shoots at people. The German are known for being cruel, but Schindler proves to be the exception. He sees the terrible events occurring all around him and decides to purchases over a thousand Jews. These Jews worked at his factory for their own safety. This is the good Spielberg wanted to display. Another theme Spielberg uses is the nature of evil and how it intertwines with human nature. Spielberg uses this to demonstrate the extremities of the time. He goes as far as having a German child chant Goodbye Jews!12 to the departing Jews.This was used by Spielberg to show how evil the world was. It truly seemed like there was not one good soul left in the world when the movie first began, yet he proved us wrong. There was a good soul left. That soul was Oskar Schindler.
In conclusion, Elie Wiesel had used many tools to explain his purpose in his book. He used characterization, symbols, and themes to portray his thoughts on the Holocaust. He gave many examples as to how the terrible events affected his life and the people around him. Director Spielberg on the other hand, uses characterization, symbols, and theme in a different manner. Instead of warning people to not repeat history, Spielberg’s purpose was rather to show to the world that in every evil there is in fact a good. In this case, Schindler. He was a selfish guy at first, but after he was exposed to the gravity of the situation, he changed his selfish attitude and gave everything to save a thousand lives.
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<p>It may be a bit long…
Also the formatting was not translated into the forum, so some formatting may be incorrect, but I tried to fix it.</p>
<p>Thanks for the patience and C&C!</p>