Night Vs. The Prince of Tehran: A philosophy on individuality a…

December 19, 2018

“Memory has consequences.” (Night, Elie Wiesel). In my opinion, I believe that the past life of an individual is significant because it leaves an impact on the individual’s character. The life that we live is a story. We all have a past, a present and a future to uphold. Just like in a story, a character is not a character without their back story. I believe that the importance of an individual’s past is critical, because not only does it portray their character growth, depth and development, but it also shows how they tackle and face the present with actions that may or may not have consequences. In an excerpt of The Prisoner of Tehran, it is clear that the narrator has faced difficulty trying to forget the past and instead try to live a new life with her family in Canada. The narrator of Prisoner of Tehran is a character that is similar to Eliezer Wiesel, the author of the Night trilogy. Both of them have similar characteristics and motives. With both of them writing about their difficulties of their pasts, and both having the difficult choice to whether or not forget or to remember it.

In my opinion, the past of an individual serves not only as a remembrance, but also offers an importance of growth that will help strengthen them.

In the novel Night, Eliezer Wiesel faces a fair amount of character development that drives the story forward. This is because through the reader’s eyes, we see Eliezer as a young boy who is intellectually religious, constantly trying to find the meaning behind God. He develops as a character who eventually loses his faith in God, because of the amount of suffering he and his father have endured. From the very moment that Eliezer and his family are taken away from their homes to go to Auschwitz, the word night appears much more frequently in the novel. To me, the word night refers to as a symbol for the “death” of life. I think that night is a constant referral to the event that they are suffering, and that all hopelessness is what ensures. In the Prisoner of Tehran, the narrator is constantly facing insomnia because of the nightmarish memories from the past that flash right before she goes to bed. Night can refer to the suffering of the soul and the darkness that ensues. This can impact an individual’s character.

Before Eliezer is freed from the concentration camps, he always mentions that darkness and night was before them. In my opinion, I believe that suffering is one of the main keys that drives the impact of a person’s development and growth. Sometimes the past is hard to forget. It is even more difficult to overcome when it involves hardships. However when the memories of the past come in to interfere with the upcoming future, there is always perseverance. As long as you have the will to keep on trying to achieve something that you could not achieve in the past because of great difficulty, your growth as a character strengthens. The suffering that you faced in the past is what will lead you to move forward and become a better and stronger individual.

Elie Wiesel endures many sufferings during his time at Auschwitz. The great amount of suffering that he endures throughout Night is what leads him to rebel against God and deny his faith. In the beginning of the novel, Eliezer is not only an observer to the others around him, but he was also an observer of God. Before his family was sent to Auschwitz, he wanted to have a greater understanding of God, and constantly tried to find the meaning behind his existence. He would frequently go to Moishe the Beadle for answers about his faith. Moishe the Beadle was an adult figure for Eliezer who guided him on the journey of his faith; for Elie’s own father did not teach him, thinking that he was far too young to learn about God’s teachings. However, this all changes when Moishe escapes from the Nazi enforcement, after being sent away. Soon afterwards, his faith in God weakens, even telling Eliezer that God was nowhere to be found. This later on reflects on Eliezer himself, because years later he too begins to deny his faith. When Eliezer witnesses a young boy being executed by Nazi officials, Eliezer’s faith in God is destroyed. When a prisoner asks Eliezer wondering where was God, Eliezer replies back, looking at the dead young boy and says, “Here is God—hanging by the gallows.” Signifying the death of his faith. This is an important development for the character, because it shows how his ideas and opinions in God have now changed drastically. From an intellectual person who was deeply religious, to a man who thinks “freely” on his own, wanting nothing to do with religion or God.

The significance of the past of an individual, in my opinion, serves to show how a character faces the difficulties of his or her previous life. In Prisoner of Tehran, the narrator gives herself a choice. Because of all the suffering and pain that she had endured in the past, she gives herself the choice whether or not to keep on forgetting it, or to remember it. When she writes a manuscript about her previous life, her husband apologizes to her for never asking about her past. Never being able to confront and comfort her. To me, forgetting is what leads a character to be underdeveloped. Facing the past is what makes a character blossom. Because only through remembering the past will you truly be able to learn from your mistakes and begin again. When Eliezer is finally freed from the concentration camps, however without his father, we as the reader see the great pain that he has to eventually try to overcome. At the end of the novel, Eliezer looks in front of a mirror and sees a corpse. A corpse perhaps being a metaphor for a death or a loss of something meaningful. His soul, perhaps. When he sees a corpse, he is reminded of his father. Of all the suffering that he has endured, Eliezer sees himself as a person who has lost it all. A person who has not only lost his family, but also his childhood innocence. He has developed from being a free spirited boy who chose to ignore the warnings of Moishe the Beadle, to a man who was finally able to understand him and become empathetic to those who have survived the death camps. With all the things that he has lost, the only thing he must do is to remember and to keep on remembering. Only by remembering can you truly accept the past and become stronger by it.

Trying to understand and accept the past is sometimes difficult to achieve. It is either because the individual is resistant to accept the past, and/or is unwilling to confront it. I believe that this is one of the major reasons why individuals are so weakened, because they are unable to come to terms with their past. When a person is unable to move on from the past, they begin to live amongst their own pain, grief and suffering. If they are not acknowledging their past deeply, the pain only gets harder and more difficult to overcome. Which is what the narrator of Prisoner of Tehran and Elie Wiesel have faced.

In my years of adolescence, I have endured quite a fair amount of pain. The pain that I had to undergo left me with a darkened past that I did not want to confront, and instead I found comfort in reading and writing. Which acted as my escape route for a while. However, because of this, it only became more difficult for me to come to terms with my past, eventually leaving me to become unsteady and in distraught. It wasn’t my last year of high school that I realized that it didn’t have to be that way. That there was redemption. Confronting a past may be difficult. Especially when it involves those who you love. There are times when accepting the past can seem like too much of an effort and may leave you heartbroken. However, I learned that once you confront that past and learn from it, only then can you move on and truly be happy.

Elie Wiesel had to learn to accept his past. He learned to overcome it by writing about his experiences in Night. His autobiography constantly tells us to remember, because if we forget, you will not be able to move on. Your past does not define you, however it shapes and strengthens you. Sometimes we have a past that we don’t like to go back to. A past that we’d rather not face. However the truth is, the past will always be there. And it will always be there, no matter what. It still exists. And even if the past seems difficult to overcome, you have to learn to push through it and find the courage to overcome it and be a better person. You must not be scared of the past. You must learn to fight through the pain of the past and realize that it does not define you but in fact, helps you grow. The past should never be ignored but must be faced upon.

This is a written and edited book report for a client that was submitted on December 19, 2018