"Lost with No Sight.
As Night draws to a close with its powerful yet simplistic ending, Elie suffers the loss of his father, the link to the past. Attached is a photograph taken recently.
Elie represents the girl crossing the street. There are many dangers and precautions before crossing, such as the factors of hunger and keeping his stamina up. The girl wears white. White is the color of innocence, and so in this picture her clothes symbolize the purity of the Jews, that they had done no wrong. The girl appears lost, as Elie is lifeless with no sight of hope.
As you look a bit farther, note the approaching car. It brings danger. We know the driver’s intention that he wants to reach the other side and keep going along the street, planning to achieve this as quickly as possible. This is similar to the German’s goal of genocide. They wish to reach their main objective as quick and efficiently as possible and therefore ignore those standing in their way by running over them.
As car accidents occur each day, all the victim is able to see is a flash of a blinking life and it’s all over. Of course, the killings of the Jews were not accidents, but the Nazis do send out a blinking alert of their arrival with the hushed rumors among the citizens of towns. In the beginning, Moshe the Beadle was that light for the Hungarian town where Elie came from. He blinked, blared out words repeatedly, but no one took head of this and zoom, those who did not run, vanished.
However in the photo, notice that the girl is looking towards the car as she is caught by the illumination of the lights. Elie unlike the others in the beginning believe Moshe the most, yet still like the girl has not taken action and moved to safety. Also near the end, Elie is at his limits when his father dies and described that everything after could not touch him anymore.
All around are the deep dark trees that hover over the scene. This is the darkness that waits patiently and are his thoughts of continuing with the evil surrounding him. There is only one tree different from the rest; the birch tree, white one. That one represents Elie’s most personal inner thoughts, such as the one of survival, referring to the block leader’s advice. In one scene the block leader, advised Elie to not give his father his ration but eat it himself for he had more potential to live as it was every man for himself in this situation. Morally, Elie refused to do this for he could not bear to part with his father or “betray” him in any way, but he knew the right decision.
“He was right, I thought in the most secret region of my heart, but I dared not to admit it.”
Finally, the sky appears glowing. The sun is the prisoner’s ray of hope, but often the clouds cover up this hope. Yet somehow, the sky will clear or that hope, sunray will shine through as Night concludes."
----5/8/07
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Also if anyone is curious, the actual picture was taken of my former friend crossing the street in such an odd way...
-lilxerica
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