ELIE’S MOTIVATION IN ACHIEVING FREEDOMREVEALED IN THE MAIN CHARACTER’S CONFLICTS
AS SEEN IN ELIE WIESEL’S NIGHT
AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirementsfor the Degree of Sarjana Sastra
in English Letters
By
MARCHELYNOW ALFA CHRISTIAN
Student Number: 024214097
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMMEDEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS
FACULTY OF LETTERSSANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
YOGYAKARTA2009
i
ELIE’S MOTIVATION IN ACHIEVING FREEDOMREVEALED IN THE MAIN CHARACTER’S CONFLICTS
AS SEEN IN ELIE WIESEL’S NIGHT
AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirementsfor the Degree of Sarjana Sastra
in English Letters
By
MARCHELYNOW ALFA CHRISTIAN
Student Number: 024214097
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMMEDEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS
FACULTY OF LETTERSSANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
YOGYAKARTA2009
ii
A Sarjana Sastra Undergraduate Thesis
ELIE’S MOTIVATION IN ACHIEVING FREEDOMREVEALED IN THE MAIN CHARACTER’S CONFLICTS
AS SEEN IN ELIE WIESEL’S NIGHT
By
MARCHELYNOW ALFA CHRISTIAN
Student Number: 024214097
Approved by
Modesta Luluk Artika W., S.S. 14 November 2009Advisor
Drs. Hirmawan Wijanarka, M.Hum 14 November 2009Co-advisor
iii
A Sarjana Sastra Undergraduate Thesis
ELIE’S MOTIVATION IN ACHIEVING FREEDOMREVEALED IN THE MAIN CHARACTER’S CONFLICTS
AS SEEN IN ELIE WIESEL’S NIGHT
By
MARCHELYNOW ALFA CHRISTIAN
Student Number: 024214097
Defended before the Board of ExaminersOn 26 November 2009
and Declared Acceptable
Name Signature
Chairman : Drs. Fr. B. Alip, M.Pd., M.A. ________
Secretary : Drs. Hirmawan Wijanarka, M.Hum ________
Member : Maria Ananta Tri S., S.S., M.Ed. ________
Member : Modesta Luluk Artika W., S.S. ________
Member : Drs. Hirmawan Wijanarka, M.Hum ________
Yogyakarta, 30 November 2009Faculty of Letters
Sanata Dharma UniversityDean,
Dr. I. Pratomo Baryadi, M.Hum
iv
MOTTO PAGE
When there is a will, there is a way(unknown)
“You got a dream, you gotta protect it.People can’t do something themselves,
they wanna tell you that you can’t do it.You want something? Go get it”
~Chris Gardner~
Just do the best,GOD will do the rest…
v
I dedicate this thesisto
My Almighty Creator, JesusChrist
My beloved Father andMother
My Princess Lem0ntea
My GrandPa & GRANDMa
My Twin Sister
The big PRUE Family
~Marchelynow Alfa Christian~
vi
LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUANPUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS
Yang bertanda tangan dibawah ini, saya mahasiswa Universitas Sanata Dharma:
Nama : Marchelynow Alfa Christian
Nomor Mahasiswa : 024214097
Demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan, saya memberikan kepada PerpustakaanUniversitas Sanata Dharma karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul :
ELIE’S MOTIVATION IN ACHIEVING FREEDOM REVEALED IN THEMAIN CHARACTER’S CONFLICTS AS SEEN IN ELIE WIESEL’SNIGHT
Beserta perangkat yang diperlukan (bila ada). Dengan demikian saya memberikankepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma hak untuk menyimpan,mengalihkan dalam bentuk media lain, mengelolanya dalam bentuk pangkalan data,mendistribusikan secara terbatas, dan mempublikasikannya di Internet atau medialain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu meminta ijin dari saya maupunmemberikan royalty kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama saya sebagaipenulis.
Demikian pernyataan ini yang saya buat dengan sebenarnya.
Dibuat di Yogyakarta
Pada tanggal : 14 November 2009
Yang menyatakan
Marchelynow Alfa Christian Mengko
vii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all, my deepest gratitude goes to my Almighty Creator, Jesus Christ
for always being there for me. I thank Him for being my Savior coz’ I’m nothing
without Him.
The writing process of this thesis involved many generous contributions of
wonderful people. My enormous thank and award is dedicated for my advisor,
Modesta Luluk Artika W., S.S. I thank her for all her help, suggestions, and guidance
during my undergraduate thesis up to the end. I also would like to thank Drs.
Hirmawan Wijanarka, M.Hum for the suggestions and inputs as the co-advisor of my
undergraduate thesis and as my academic counselor. My acknowledgement also goes
to all of the lecturers and the staff of Department of English Letters. I thank them for
their unforgettable great role during my study in this university.
With lots of love, I would like to express my extraordinary gratefulness to my
amazing father and mother for their unconditional love. They are tha Inspirator,
S.F.L. Mengko for his inspirational words, and my wonderful tha Motivator, Deetje
Sampe who always care of me and taught me to be optimistic in finishing this thesis
as soon as possible.
I would like to express my special gratitude to my precious ‘Princess
Lem0ntea’, Danita Irianti Malute S.S., for her love, forgiveness, patience, help and
support. I thank her for always there by my side every time I need her and always
viii
help me in solving every problem during the process of writing this undergraduate
thesis.
My biggest appreciation goes to the Pengew-Sampe Family, the Paath-Sampe
Family, and Big Mengko’s Family. I would like to thank my aunt Ike and Mr. Moses.
Thank you for your support.
The expression of thankfulness also goes to big PRUE family (Jeff Reinhard,
Nicholas Maynard, Yeremias Nardi, Gerardus Ferdinand, Gatot Hendy, Fitra Sony,
Sri Harjanto, Suryo Pramono, Rudi Prasojo, Debora Wienda, Kartika Kusumaningsih,
Faida Indana, Dian Patricia) who have shared an unforgettable and craziness
friendship in all lovely days during my study at Sanata Dharma University, and
special warm thanks to Dhina Mayasari, Agusta Rosariana, my KKN team (Githa,
Ria, Tyas, Abu, Yosep), Yosua’06 English Letters Department, the Karang nangka’s
and the Djiman’s.
Last but not least, thanks for everyone who helps me in hand and those who
filled my life with joy and laughter that I cannot mention here. You are all the best
things I have ever had.
Marchelynow Alfa Christian
ix
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE………………………………………………………………….. iAPPROVAL PAGE…………………………………………………………… iiACCEPTANCE PAGE……………………………………………………….. iiiMOTTO PAGE……………………………………………………………….. ivDEDICATION PAGE………………………………………………………… vPUBLICATION PAGE……………………………………………………….. viACKNOWLEGDEMENTS…………………………………………………... viiTABLE OF CONTENTS……………………………………………………... ixABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………. xiABSTRAK……………………………………………………………………... xii
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION....................................................................... 1A. Background of the Study……………...............……………….…….. 1B. Problem Formulation………………………………………………... 4C. Objectives of the Study……………………………………………… 5D. Definition of Terms…………………………………………….……. 5
CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL REVIEW………………………………….. 7A. Review of Related Studies…………………………………………... 7B. Review of Related Theories……………………………………….… 9
1. Character and Characterization….…………………….…….. 92. The Relation between Literature and Psychology……….….. 123. Theory of Motive and Motivation…………………………... 134. Theory of Conflict…………………………………………… 145. Review on Freedom and Survival…………………………… 17
C. Theoretical Framework……………………………………………... 19
CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY……………………………………….….. 20A. Object of the Study…………………………………………….……. 20B. Approach of the Study………………………………………….…… 21C. Method of the Study…………………………………………….…... 22
CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS…………………………………………………... 24A. The Characterization of the Characters…………………………….. 24
1. Elie Wiesel……………………...………………………...… 252. Chlomo Wiesel…………………..…………………………. 29
B. The Internal and External Conflicts of Elie Wiesel….…………..…. 311. Internal Conflicts…………...……………………….….…... 322. External Conflicts………..…………………………..……... 41
C. Elie’s Motivation as seen through the Internal and External Conflicts 46
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CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION……………………………………….…..…… 58
BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………….……..……. 62
APPENDIX : The Summary of Elie Wiesel’s Night……………….…………... 65
xi
ABSTRACT
MARCHELYNOW ALFA CHRISTIAN (2009). Elie’s Motivation in AchievingFreedom Revealed in the Main Character’s Conflicts as Seen in Elie Wiesel’sNight. Yogyakarta: Department of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata DharmaUniversity.
This thesis discusses the novel by Elie Wiesel entitled Night, published byBantam Books in 1982. Elie Wiesel’s Night tells about the life of a Jewish boy whostruggled for his life in the concentration camp during the Second World War. Thisthesis discusses Elie’s Motivation in Achieving Freedom Revealed in The MainCharacter’s Conflicts as seen in Elie Wiesel’s Night.
To see Elie’s motivation of survival that revealed in the main character’sconflicts in the novel, three questions are formulated to guide the analysis. They are(1) How are the characters described in the Elie Wiesel’s Night? (2) What are ElieWiesel’s internal and external conflicts that revealed in the story? (3) In what way theinternal and external conflicts reveal Elie’s motivation of survival?
The method applied in this study is library research. The approach used in thisstudy is psychological approach. The sources that are needed to support this study aretaken from the novel Night and sources that contain the theories of literature andtheories of psychology in terms of books and internet.
Based on the analysis, the results of the study are as follows. Firstly, ElieWiesel’s characteristics are religious, loving and brave. Chlomo Wiesel’scharacteristics are wise and loving. Secondly is the Elie’s internal and externalconflicts. His internal conflicts are conflicts that happen inside of him or conflicts ofElie Wiesel against himself. The conflicts involved his religiosity or his God’sexistence and his loving characteristic related to his father’s existence. His externalconflicts are his conflicts against other persons and nature. He had conflicts with hisfather, Idek Kapo, Franek, the dentist, other prisoners, and the fury of the coldtemperature of winter. Thirdly, Elie’s motivation of survival can be seen in everyconflict as Elie’s motivation influenced his mind, action, and behavior. Thismotivation derived from a goal. His goal is freedom. Freedom becomes a goal of ElieWiesel because by becoming the oppressed, freedom is something that the oppressedwanted most to achieve in order to once again live normal which is free from thecamp, free from oppression and free from slavery.
xii
ABSTRAK
MARCHELYNOW ALFA CHRISTIAN (2009). Elie’s Motivation in AchievingFreedom Revealed in the Main Character’s Conflicts as Seen in Elie Wiesel’sNight. Yogyakarta: Jurusan Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra, Universitas SanataDharma.
Skripsi ini membahas sebuah novel yang berjudul Night karya Elie Wieselyang diterbitkan pada tahun 1982 oleh Bantam Books. Novel Night bercerita tentangpengalaman hidup seorang anak laki-laki keturunan Yahudi yang berjuang untukbertahan hidup selama berada di kemah konsentrasi pada saat Perang Dunia II.Skripsi ini membahas tentang pentingnya arti bertahan hidup dalam upaya meraihkebebasan yang merupakan sebuah tujuan dari seorang Elie Wiesel dalam novelNight. Pentingnya arti bertahan hidup tersebut tersirat pada tiap-tiap konflik yangdihadapi Elie Wiesel selama berada di kemah konsentrasi.
Untuk melihat arti pentingnya bertahan hidup yang tersirat didalam setiapkonflik yang dialami Elie Wiesel, diformulasikanlah tiga pertanyaan guna memanduproses analisa, yaitu: (1) Bagaimanakah penokohan dari tokoh-tokoh dalam novelNight karya Elie Wiesel? (2) Konflik internal dan eksternal apa sajakah yang dihadapioleh Elie Wiesel? (3) Bagaimana konflik-konflik tersebut menunjukan motivasi Elieuntuk bertahan hidup?
Metode yang digunakan dalam studi ini adalah studi pustaka. Pendekatanyang digunakan adalah pendekatan psikologi. Data-data yang diperlukan untukmendukung studi ini diambil dari novel Night dan sumber-sumber yang memuat teorisastra dan teori psikologi dalam bentuk buku-buku maupun data-data dari internet.
Berdasarkan analisis yang dilakukan, hasil temuan studi ini adalah sebagaiberikut. Pertama, Elie Wiesel digambarkan sebagai seorang anak yang religius,penyayang dan pemberani. Chlomo Wiesel digambarkan sebagai seorang ayah yangbijaksana dan penyayang. Kedua, Elie menghadapi konflik-konflik baik itu yangbersifat internal maupun eksternal. Konflik yang bersifat internal adalah konflik-konflik yang terjadi di dalam diri Elie sendiri. Konflik-konflik yang bersifat internalmeliputi konflik-konflik yang melibatkan religiositasnya berkaitan dengankeberadaan Tuhan dan konflik-konflik yang berkaitan dengan keberadaan ayahnya.Konflik yang bersifat eksternal adalah konflik-konflik antara Elie dan tokoh-tokohlainnya ataupun antara Elie dan kekuatan alam. Tokoh-tokoh yang terlibat konflikdengan Elie adalah: ayahnya, Idek Kapo, Franek, seorang dokter gigi, serta tahananlainnya. Elie juga sempat bergelut dengan dinginnya suhu di musim dingin. Ketiga,motivasi Elie yang adalah bertahan hidup dapat dilihat pada setiap konflik yangdihadapi Elie Wiesel dimana motivasinya mempengaruhi pola pikir, tindakan, danperilaku Elie. Motivasi ini muncul dari sebuah tujuan yaitu kebebasan. Kebebasantelah menjadi sebuah tujuan yang ingin dicapai oleh mereka-mereka yang terkekangdan tertindas demi sekali lagi merasakan hidup normal bebas dari pengekangan,penindasan dan perbudakan.
1
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
This chapter consists of four sections. The first is the background of the
study, which covers reason of choosing the novel and the topic. The second
concerns with problem formulation, which gives general description of the
problem that will be analyzed in this study. The third talks about the objectives of
the study to answer the problems stated in the problem formulations. The last part
describes about the terms that are used in this study.
A. Background of the Study
Literary work is a portrait of human’s life. What is pictured there is
generally based on the fact and experience which happened in the past or the
dreams about future which is expressed through the medium of written language.
As Hudson says in An Introduction to Study of Literature,
Literary is the expression of life through the medium of Language. It canbe regarded as something essential since it contains about real life, people,thought, and their feeling about life (1958: 10)
The writer sees that literature is a creation of art, an object that an artist
makes. Literature is not only an idea or theory that an artist makes, but also a
creative work to express an experience of an artist, which is related to the human
life. A novel as an example of literary works can be used by the author to express
his or her feeling, point of view, protest or even everything that he or she wants
toward his society or environment where he or she lives in. Murphy in his book
says that the greatest novels reflects life and are compounded similarly of many
2
elements, just as life is a mixture of joy, disappointment, hope, sorrow, humor,
suffering, and success (1972: 33).
Night is a novel by Elie Wiesel published by the Bantam Books in 1982.
This novel is a true story where the author of this novel was the main character in
the story; as Stanton stated that an author can also become the storyteller who told
us about a story where he or she wants us to see the meaning of something, to feel
a living experience, not just a gray abstraction (Stanton 1965: 19). Night is a story
which tells us about the author’s experiences living in the concentration camp
during the Second World War. He has experienced a horrible journey of pain and
sorrow during the Nazi’s regime. During his journey of life, he has faced so many
conflicts both internal and external conflicts. Conflict is a natural and inescapable
phenomenon in human condition (Burgoon & Ruffner, 1977: 503). In other
words, every human will face conflicts during his life. All conflicts in human life
will have something to do with what we called motive and goals. Cofer and
Appley stated that conflict is often conceived as occurring not only between
action tendencies, but also between motives or drives and between goals or end
states of action (1968: 413).
Since every human has his/her own goals and motives in life, it becomes
easy to have conflicts in every day life. These motives and goals will also
influence his or her motivation and behavior. According to Frank J. Burno in
Dictionary of Keywords in Psychology (1986: 140) the definition of motive is
hypothetical state in an organism used to explain its choices and goal-oriented
behavior. Similar to what Gerring and Zimbardo suggested in Psychology and
3
Life, the definition of motivation is the process of starting, directing and
maintaining physical and psychological activities toward a certain goal (2002:
364). For the writer, the close relation between motive, motivation, conflict, and
goal appears to be an interesting subject to be analyzed, in this case, the relation of
Elie Wiesel’s goal, motivation and conflicts especially during his life as a prisoner
in concentration camp. As a prisoner, freedom has become something that Elie
wanted to achieve. Freedom is something important for every human being. As
Sartre mentioned that human beings are free and this is what separates human
from animals. He also argued that we have the freedom to choose our own path
and to decide upon our own essence and our own nature. Furthermore, he explains
that the only necessity that a man needs is being free. Man is condemned to
freedom: he cannot not to be free. (1956:560). Another writer, Paulo Freire in The
Pedagogy of the Oppressed suggested that by being the oppressed side, freedom is
something which the oppressed struggles for in order to strive to get back their
stolen humanity (1973:44). Enrich Fromm in The Fear of Freedom defined that
the longing for freedom is rooted in all who are oppressed (1960: 1). Freedom has
become something that the oppressed wanted so much. Freedom has become a
desire for every oppressed person. In this case, freedom has become a goal for
Elie. He wants to see the day where he will be liberate from the concentration
camp and from the slavery. Freedom for Elie who has become the oppressed is
something valuable. But in order to achieve this valuable thing he must struggle
for it. His struggles can be seen in his conflicts. Elie knows that he must struggle
to survive living in the concentration camp just in order to be able to see the
4
liberation day. His goal of freedom has motivated him to keep on fighting. In
other words, his goal has created his motivation. Survival has become Elie’s
motivation. His motivation directs and maintains his physical and psychological
activities toward his goal. Elie’s motivation which is to survive influenced his
mind, actions, and his behavior.
In Night, the setting, the flow, the dynamical emotion of getting involved
in this novel, the sense, and the scope of understanding the novel are the things
that can be reached more in this novel. During Elie Wiesel’s struggle to live in the
concentration camp, he has gone through so many conflicts even a conflict with
nature. In Night, Elie’s goal of freedom has created Elie’s motivation which is to
survive. This motivation influenced his mind, actions, and behaviors. The
importance of Elie’s motivation of survival is depicted through the Elie’s both
internal and external conflicts. That is why “ELIE’S MOTIVATION IN
ACHIEVING FREEDOM REVEALED IN THE MAIN CHARACTER’S
CONFLICTS AS SEEN IN ELIE WIESEL’S NIGHT” is chosen as the title of this
thesis.
B. Problem Formulation
As a guide for the writer in referring to the particular elements to discuss,
these questions below will direct the writer’s writing on the certain scope of the
analysis. They are stated to be the problems, as well as the basic construction of
the thesis.
5
1. How are the characters described in the Elie Wiesel’s Night?
2. What are Elie Wiesel’s internal and external conflicts revealed in the story?
3. How do the internal and external conflicts reveal Elie’s motivation of
survival in achieving freedom?
C. Objectives of the Study
The aim of the study is to answer the three formulated problems above as
clearly as possible. The first thing to do is to find how Elie Wiesel describes the
main characters in the novel. The second thing to do is to find Elie Wiesel’s
internal and external conflicts. And the last thing to do is to explain how internal
and external conflicts reveal Elie’s motivation in achieving freedom as seen in
Elie Wiesel’s Night.
D. Definition of Terms
To avoid any misinterpretations in the title, this thesis will provide some
explanation on several important terms mainly used and closely related to the
topic. The writer tries to explain them by borrowing mainly from the media,
particularly from books and dictionaries.
1. Character
One of the important elements of a play or a novel is the Character.
Abrams’ theory about character in A Glossary of Literary Terms mentioned that
character is the person presented in a dramatic or narrative work who naturally
possesses moral, dispositional, and emotional qualities that all reflected in the
dialogue and action among the person (1981: 20).
6
2. Motive and Motivation
According to Frank J. Burno in Dictionary of Keywords in Psychology
(1986: 140) the definition of motive is hypothetical state in an organism used to
explain its choices and goal-oriented behavior. Furthermore, in Psychology and
Life the definition of motivation is the process of starting, directing and
maintaining physical and psychological activities toward a certain goal (Gerring
and Zimbardo, 2002: 364).
3. Conflict
The term is conflict which is taken from Literature: Structure, Sound, and
Sense second edition by Laurence Perrine. He defines conflict as a clash of action,
ideas, and desires or wills between two individuals or among people in the
society. The conflict can include physical, mental, emotional, or moral. In the real
life people try to solve conflict but they will soon get a conflict (1974:44). In other
words conflict is a state of discomfort cause by someone’s ideas, desires, wishes,
or will that are incompatible between individuals, society, or someone’s internal
and external demands.
4. Freedom
The word freedom according to Webster’s Encyclopaedic Unabridged
Dictionary means a state of being at liberty rather than in confinement or under
physical restraint. “Freedom” is also understood as the power to make one’s own
choices or decisions without constraint from within or without; autonomy; self-
determination (1975:565).
7
CHAPTER II
THEORETICAL REVIEW
This chapter will be focused on the analyzing of theories that are used in
this study. It is divided into three parts. The first part, the writer tries to review on
some related studies that contain some information, comments, or criticisms
related to Elie Wiesel’s Night. The second part is the writer tries to review on
some theories that will be used in the analysis. The third or the last part is the
writer discusses the theoretical framework. In this part, the writer tries to explain
how the theories are used to support the analysis.
A. Review of Related Studies
The existence of a literary work always invites comments or criticism from
some critics. The criticism can be an agreement or disagreement toward the story.
There are some criticisms directed to Night and those criticisms are needed to
support the analysis of this study.
One of the comments is in a website -www.powells.com- which is written
by the publisher of Night, which said that Night is a terrifying account of the Nazi
death camp horror that turns a young Jewish boy into an agonized witness to the
death of his family, the death of his innocence, and the death of his God.
Furthermore, Francios Mauriac in the same website says that
“What I maintain is that this personal record, coming after so many othersand describing an outrage about which we might imagine we already knowall that it is possible to know, is nevertheless different, distinct,unique....Have we ever thought about the consequence of a horror that,though less apparent, less striking than the other outrages, is yet the worst
7
8
of all to those of us who have faith: the death of God in the soul of a childwho suddenly discovers absolute evil?”.
Another critic, Alan M. Dershowitz in the Washington Post Book World
writes that "The book that always makes me weep is 'Night' by Elie Wiesel,
because it brings up emotions of sorrow, horror and anger. And the book that
unfailingly cheers me up is also 'Night' by Elie Wiesel, because it shows me that
there is never an excuse for not trying to overcome evil, and that there is no
situation from which we cannot emerge with a determination to be productive”
(www.powells.com). The same idea also rises on A. Alvarez’s opinion that is
written in the same website which conclude that 'Night' is almost unbearably
painful, and certainly beyond criticism.
According to Lawrence L. Langer, an eminent scholar of Holocaust
literature and a friend of Wiesel’s, in Rachel Donadio’s article The Story of Night,
“What sets Night apart is a moral honesty that helps undermine thesentimental responses to the Holocaust. Night remains an essentialcompanion or antidote to The Diary of Anne Frank.(http://www.nytimes.com)
Another study on Elie Wiesel’s Night was done by Theo Donum. Donum in his
thesis “Problems of Faith, Hope, and Suffering as Revealed in Eliezer’s Character
Development as Seen in Elie Wiesel’s Night” concluded that the life in
concentration camps has made Eliezer think about staying alive until the day of
liberation. After his father’s death, nothing matters to Eliezer anymore as if he has
already obtained his freedom. Eliezer eventually succeeds in managing himself to
stay alive. His survival is not simply a matter of luck but there is no doubt that
9
hope, to some extent, has taken serious part in providing Eliezer the strength to
stay away from death (2008:88).
Those opinions, criticisms, and comments give deeper information for the
writer in analyzing the story of the novel. Most of them share the same view about
the issues appearing in the time when the novel was written and generally focus
on a terrifying account of the Nazi death camp especially to the Jewish. Donum’s
point of view about Elie Wiesel’s Night, provoke the writer to analyze deeply on
the influence of freedom and survival. That is why, in this undergraduate thesis,
the writer will emphasize more on Elie’s motivation of survival in achieving his
goal of freedom revealed in the main character’s conflicts as seen in the Elie
Wiesel’s Night. The writer hopes that this study will give something new in
understanding the story of the novel.
B. Review of Related Theories
Some theories will be used in the study as the guidance in answering the
problems formulation that becomes the focus of the analysis.
1. Theory of Character and Characterization
Since this study tries to deal with the main character’s conflict, the writer
thinks that the understanding of the theories of character and characterization are
needed to do the analysis. Character is one of the elements of play or novel that
has significant role to show the qualities of the novel or play. According to
Abrams in A Glossary of Literary Terms, character is the person presented in a
dramatic or narrative work who naturally possesses moral, dispositional, and
10
emotional qualities that all reflected in the dialogue and action among the person
(1981: 20).
Abrams also stated that characters in novel are divided into “major” and
“minor” character based on their importance in the novel. He mentioned that
major characters are substantially involved in main action as well as becoming the
central and the most important in a story, while minor characters are characters
that appear in certain setting and they are necessary to become the background for
the major character (Abrams, 1981:20). According to Stanton in An Introduction
to Fiction, the term “character” is commonly used in two ways; first, it designates
the individual who appears in the story. Second, it refers to the mixture of interest,
desires, emotions, and moral principles that makes up each of these individuals
(1965:17).
The process by which an author creates a character is called
characterization. Murphy in Understanding Unseens: An Introduction to English
Poetry and the English Novel for Overseas Students (1972: 161-173) describes
characterization as the way in which an author attempts to make his characters
understandable and come alive for his readers. He also proposes some methods of
characterization to discern how an author conveys the characters and the
personalities of the people he writes about.
The first method is personal description. By using this method the author
can describe a person’s appearance in terms of build, face, hands, skin-color, hair,
and clothes in order to help the reader both to visualize the character and to
understand his characteristics.
11
The second method is character as seen by another. Instead of describing
a character directly the author can describe him through the eyes and opinions of
another. The reader gets, as it were, a reflected image. This method can give the
impressions of shape, cleanliness, firmness, smoothness, color, etc. Another
character will give explanation about what the character is like.
The third method is speech. The author can give the readers an insight into
the character of one of the persons in the book through what the person says. The
characters of a person can be seen from whenever he/she speaks, having
conversation with others, and stated his/her opinion.
The fourth method is past life. By letting the reader learn something about
a person’s past life the author can give the readers a clue to events that have
helped to shape a person’s character. This can be done by direct comment by the
author, though the person’s thoughts, through his conversation or through the
medium of another person.
The fifth method is conversation of others. By using this technique, the
author can also give the readers clues to a person’s character through the
conversations of other people and the things they say about him. People talk about
other people and the things they say often give as a clue to the character of the
person spoken about.
The sixth method is reactions. By using this method, the author can also
give the readers a clue to a person’s character by letting us know how that person
reacts to various situations and events. The actions are related to his/her motives
and thought.
12
The seventh method is direct comment. In this way, the author can
describe or comment on a person’s character directly. Usually the author gives
comments based on his point of view.
The eighth method is thoughts. In this method, the author can give us
direct knowledge of what a person is thinking about. In this respect, he is able to
do what we cannot do in real life. He can tell the readers what different people are
thinking. The readers then are in a privileged position; they have, as it were, a
secret listening device plugged in to the inmost thoughts of a person in a novel.
The last method is mannerisms. Through this method, the author can
describe a person’s mannerisms, habits, or idiosyncrasies which may also tell the
readers something about his character.
Some of the theories above will be useful to help the writer to identify and
understanding character’s attitudes in the novel and to do the analysis.
2. Review on the Relation between Literature and Psychology
It is almost impossible to separate psychology and literature because both
of them have a close relation in which some literary works take the issue of
psychology as the basic idea as Wellek and Waren in Theory of Literature (1956:
81) purposed. The term psychology of literature has four possible meanings. The
first is the psychological study of the author as a type or as an individual. The
second is the study of creative process. The third is the study of psychological
types and laws presented within works of literature, and the last is the effect of
literature upon readers (1956: 81). They state that people can learn theory of
psychology that may be revealed in works of literature by analyzing the works.
13
Cohen in Humanistic Psychology also states that literature and psychology has a
relation in exploring human’s life, “in a variety of ways, a psychological approach
has opened new avenues to the study of literature” (Cohen, 1958: 189). Those
theories have shown the relation between psychology and literature. Analyzing
literary works may reflect certain psychological factors. This study will explore
parts of the psychological subjects. That is Elie’s motivation of survival in
achieving his goal of freedom.
3. Theories of Motive and Motivation
Frank J. Burno in Dictionary of Keywords in Psychology proposed the
definition of motive as a hypothetical state in an organism used to explain its
choices and goal-oriented behavior (1986: 140). It is supported by Charles G.
Morris’ theory which stated that motive is an inner directing force –a need or
want- that arouses the organism and directs behavior toward a goal (1990: 408).
Furthermore, in Psychology and Life the definition of motivation is the
process of starting, directing and maintaining physical and psychological activities
toward a certain goal (Gerring and Zimbardo, 2002: 364). It is similar to Miller’s
theory of motivation in Robert C. Beck’s Motivation Theories and Principles
which stated that the closer an organism is to a positive goal, the stronger the
motivation to approach that goal and the closer an organism to an aversive goal,
the stronger the motivation to escape or avoid the goal (1978:256). Petri, in the
Motivation: Theory and Research, states that motivation is the forces acting on or
within an organism to initiate and direct behavior (1981: 12).
14
Furthermore, Abraham Maslow in Introduction of Psychology stated that
there are psychological motives and physiological motive. Psychological motives
are motives which are in form of desire such as safety needs, belongingness and
love needs, esteem needs, cognitive needs, and aesthetic needs (in Atkinson,
Atkinson, and Hilgard, 1983: 317). From those theories of motivation and motive,
it can be concluded that all people usually have certain motive when they do
something in their life because motive is the foundation of every action human
beings do. All the theories of motive above will be used in determining Elie’s
motivation of survival in achieving his goal of freedom.
4. Theory of Conflict
Conflict in its broadest sense means “struggle or fight”, furthermore, it
means “opposition, differences, or clash of opinions, desire, etc., for examples are
the conflict between one’s duty and one’s desire, a conflict of interest between the
achievement of one aim and of another” (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary,
1989: 245). In analyzing Elie Wiesel’s Night the writer uses many theories of
conflict. Laurence Perrine’s in her book Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense
assert, “Conflict itself is a clash of action, ideas, desires, or will between two
individual, or among people in the story” (1974: 44). In a journal of psychology
by Malloy and McMurray, Conflict Strategies and Resolutions, Conflict can be
defined as a relationship where two people have incompatible goals and use a
variety of prosocial and antisocial strategies to influence each other’s behavior
(1996: 186).
15
Abrams in A Glossary of Literary Terms proposed the meaning of conflict
as the disagreement between the protagonist and the antagonist that may create
conflict but “there may be the conflict of the protagonist against fate, or against
the circumstances that stand between him and a goal he has set himself; and in
some works, the chief conflict is between opposing desires or values in the
protagonist’s own temperament” (1981: 159). Conflict does not only show the
struggle of protagonist against someone or something, but also shows some
“motivation” and aim that wants to be achieved (Holman and Harmon, 1986:108).
Perrine states in his book, Story and Structure, that there are two kinds of
conflict; they are internal and external conflict. The internal conflict or
psychological conflict is a struggle within a person, or a struggle of a person
against himself. The individual of himself is facing a kind of complicated situation
in which he or she should choose the best alternative according to his or her
consideration (1970: 54). It is similar to what Rodman suggested; inner conflict
refers to a struggle that happens inside the heart and mind of the protagonist
(Rodman, 1964: 363). In psychology, this internal conflict or inner conflict called
intrapersonal conflict. Intrapersonal conflict is the first level of conflict.
Intrapersonal conflict results when an individual, on the basis of his or her own
behavior or other related experiences, perceives himself or herself in a manner
inconsistent with previous held notions of self-concept (Burgon & Ruffner, 1977:
484). In other words, intrapersonal conflict is a condition where we experience an
internal struggle between what we think we are and what others think us to be.
16
In psychological parlance such a situation is considered Self-estrangement.
The term self-estrangement presumes that each of us has within us an inner self
that consists of what we really are, what we really believe, and what we really
think. Rossiter and Pearce suggested that the internal struggle that accompanies
self-estrangement forces us to choose between behaviors consistent with our own
self-image and behaviors consistent with another’s opinion of how we should act
or think (Rossiter and Pearce, 1975: 154). Some choices however, involve serious
internal conflicts, especially those choices that involved something important such
as life goals. This idea supports the statement from Cofer and Appley in which
they suggested that conflicts may arise between motives, goals, or responses but is
meaningfully conceived only in terms of incompatible action tendencies. One may
speak, for example, of a conflict between desire and fear, on the motivational side,
or between anticipated pleasure and pain, on the side of the end state resulting
from action (1968:413).
Perrine defined External conflict as a struggle which involves a character
and other things outside the character himself. There are three categories of
external conflict, which are struggle against nature, a struggle against another
person, and a struggle against society. A struggle against nature represents man
versus forces of nature, the difficulties and the danger; a struggle against another
person concerns with a kind of a struggle between one person and another, many
popular fictions are based in this conflict; a struggle against society is a struggle
about a man values in his society (Perrine, 1970: 59). A struggle of one person
against another person also called interpersonal conflict. Interpersonal conflict
17
may be arisen when the goals of two individuals are incompatible or whenever
one strongly motivated individual feels threatened or frustrated by another or
when individuals fail to share perceptions of others. Interpersonal conflict, then,
signifies a mutual opposition or aggression, always with reference to an
indivisible goal or material reward (Burgoon and Ruffner, 1977:485-486).
In Cofer and Appley’s Motivation: Theory and Research, types of conflict
which is divided based on the basis of the movement in space in relation to goals,
response tendencies can be divided into two groups: those involving approach to
and those involving avoidance of a goal or goal region. By these two basic
response patters, four types of conflict can be derived: approach-approach,
avoidance-avoidance, approach-avoidance, and double approach-avoidance.
Most common type of conflict is the approach-avoidance. It is a conflict between
desire and fear (1968:433).
Conflict in a literary work may consist of one conflict that is stated clearly
and the reader can easily identify the conflict. It may also consist of multi
conflicts or more than one conflict that is difficult to be understood by the reader
(Perrine, 1974:44). To understand multi conflicts the reader should analyze the
internal and external conflicts one by one.
5. Review on Freedom and Survival
In Webster’s Encyclopaedic Unabridged Dictionary the word “freedom”
means as a state of being at liberty rather than in confinement or under physical
restraint. “Freedom” is also understood as the power to make one’s own choices
or decisions without constraint from within or without; autonomy; self-
18
determination (1975:565). In The New Oxford American Dictionary, the word
“freedom” means the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without
hindrance or restraint. It also means the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved
(2005:670).
As Sartre mentioned that human beings are free and it is what separates
human from animals. Sartre argued that we have the freedom to choose our own
path and to decide upon our own essence and our own nature. In effect, human
gets to pick what he will become. Sartre wants men to accept their own absolute
responsibility for their lives. Man is free, completely free. Furthermore, Sartre
explains that the only necessity that a man needs is being free. Man is condemned
to freedom: he cannot not to be free. (1956:560). Paulo Freire in The Pedagogy of
the Oppressed suggested that by being the oppressed side, freedom is something
which the oppressed struggles for in order to strive to get back their stolen
humanity (1973:44). Freire’s opinion is also related to what Enrich Fromm
suggested in The Fear of Freedom, he defined that the longing for freedom is
rooted in all who are oppressed (1960: 1).
In the The New Oxford American Dictionary, the meaning of “survival” is
the state or fact of continuing to live or exist, typically in spite of an accident, or
deal, or difficult circumstances (2005:1702). In the Webster’s Encyclopaedic
Unabridged Dictionary, survival means surviving of pertaining to the food,
clothing, equipment, etc., necessary to or aiding a person’s survival in adverse or
unusual circumstances (1975:1432).
19
a. Theoretical Framework
Some theories are employed by the writer to be the basic understanding in
doing the analysis of the study. The theory of character and characterization is
used because in the first part of the analysis the writer deals with the characters
and characteristics of the characters in the play. In here, writer needs those
theories to understand the basic concept of characters and to describe the
characteristics of the characters in the novel.
The writer uses the theory of conflict to find out and analyze the internal
and external conflicts the main characters involved. All conflicts were analyzed
using theory of conflict both from Literature and Psychology point of view. It
enables the writer to analyze Elie’s conflicts, as the answer of the second problem.
To answer the third and final question, the writer uses theories of motive
and motivation in order to see the relation between Elie’s conflicts, goals, or
motives, and motivation. Those theories explain about the understanding of
human’s behavior in doing an action like action during conflicts. It enables the
writer to analyze Elie’s motivation of survival in achieving his goal of freedom
that become an important thing to the main character and how those things
influenced his mind, action and behaviors as seen through the Elie’s conflicts.
20
CHAPTER III
METHODOLOGY
This chapter will be divided into three parts. In the first part, the writer
describes the object of the study. The description of the novel and the information
of its publication are clearly presented. In the second part, the writer explains the
application of the approaches used for the study. Finally, in the last part, the writer
describes the methods that are taken in analyzing the novel Night.
A. Object of the Study
As the object of the analysis, this thesis takes Elie Wiesel’s Night which is
firstly published by Hill & Wang, New York on September 1960. The novel that
the writer uses as the primary source of this study is taken from the book that
published by Bantam Books, New York in 1982. The novel is translated from the
French by Stella Rodway and it consists of 109 pages. In this edition, the book
contains the story of Night and some important information. The first one is a
preface for the twenty-fifth anniversary edition by Robert McAfee Brown and the
second one is a foreword by Francois Mauriac.
Elie Wiesel is a survivor of the Nazi concentration camps and the winner
of the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize, Wiesel is one of the most acclaimed authors of
Holocaust literature and an eloquent spokesperson for contemporary Judaism.
Throughout his career he has delineated the horror of the concentration camps and
has explored the apparent indifference of God, ultimately reaffirming his life and
faith. His lyrical, impressionistic novels, written primarily in French, frequently
20
21
juxtapose past and present to examine the effect of the Holocaust on Jews, both as
individuals and as a people. Although Wiesel focuses strongly on the experience
of Jews, his work also speaks for all persecuted people, and, by extension, for
humanity itself. Night is generally about a story of Elie Wiesel’s own experiences
when He was taken from Sighet, a little town in Transylvania to Birkenau,
reception center for Auschwitz. This novel shows Elie Wiesel’s struggle to live in
the concentration camp just in order to see the liberation day come. This novel
also shows how he has gone through so many conflicts both internal and external
conflict and he tries to deal with those conflicts.
B. Approach of the Study
In order to analyze the novel Night, the writer uses the psychological
approach as the most suitable approach to be applied in this study because the
writer studies on the main character’s motivation of survival in achieving his goal
of freedom that reveal through the main character’s conflicts. Rohrberger and
Woods in Reading and Writing about Literature divided literary approaches to
literature into five basic sections. There are: formalist approach, biographical
approach, psychological approach, sociocultural-historical approach, and
mythopoeic approach (1971: xi).
Psychological approach is used to explore the main character’s motivation
of survival in achieving his goal of freedom that reveal through the main
character’s conflicts. As stated in Reading and Writing about Literature
(Rohrberger and Woods, 1971: 81), psychological approach emphasizes on human
psychology and believes that human’s creativity, thought, behavior and other
22
psychological aspect that give influence to literary work. In this case the writer
tries to see the conflict from the behavior of the main character or from the
psychological aspect. The analysis of this novel deals with the motive of survival
and freedom which is part of psychological point of view. By using this approach,
the writer tries to find out how the internal and external conflicts reveal the main
character’s motivation of survival in achieving his goal of freedom.
C. Method of the Study
In analyzing the study, the writer used library research in collecting the
data. There were two kinds of sources used in this study. The primary source of
data was a book with a new preface by Robert McAfee Brown and a foreword by
Francois Mauriac which was published by, Bantam Books, New York in 1982.
The secondary sources were some books and criticisms on literature and
some books that concerned with the theory of conflict, motive and the ideas of
survival and freedom. Some of the books were A Glossary of Literary Terms from
Abrams, An Introduction to the Study of Literature from W.H. Hudson,
Understanding Unseens: An Introduction to English Poetry and the English Novel
for Overseas Students by M. J. Murphy, Fiction: An Introduction to Reading and
Writing by Edgar V. Roberts and Henry E. Jacobs, Human Communication by
Michael Burgoo and Maichael Ruffner, Motivation: Theory and Research by C. N
Cofer and M. H. Appley, Critical Survey of Long Fiction by Frank Maggil, The
Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire, Interpersonal Conflict by Joyces
Hocker and William Wilmot, and Being and Nothingness by Jean Paul Satre.
23
To gather explanation of the novel, the writer used some online sources,
such as, “The Story of Night” by Donadio in the www.nytimes.com, “Synopses &
Reviews of Night” in the powells.com, “Critical Analysis of Elie Wiesel's Night”
in www.enotes.com.
In order to have a good understanding about the meaning of Conflict,
Motive and Motivation, and the ideas of Survival and Freedom the writer used
some dictionaries, such as Webster’s Encyclopedia Unabridged Dictionary,
Dictionary of Keywords in Psychology, The New Oxford American Dictionary,
and Longman Dictionary of English Language and Culture .
Concerning with the library research, there were four steps that the writer
used in this thesis. First, the writer read the novel to find the topic. Second, the
writer tried to find some references, which could be used to support the topic in
revealing the main character’s motivation of survival in achieving his goal of
freedom that reveal through the main character’s conflicts. Third, the writer used
some theories to analyze the relation of the main character’s motivation of
survival with the main character’s conflicts. Finally, after having answered the
three problems, the writer drew the conclusions from what he had already
discussed in the analysis.
24
CHAPTER IV
ANALYSIS
This chapter consists of the analysis of the literary work and the answer of
the problem formulations. The first analysis deals with the characterization of Elie
Wiesel as the main characters in the novel. The writer also believes that it is also
necessary to analyze another character in the novel. Another character that will be
analyzed is Chlomo Wiesel (Elie’s father). The second analysis is analyzing the
main character’s conflicts. The third analysis is to see the relation between the
main character’s motivation of survival in achieving freedom and the main
character’s conflicts. In other words, in the last part of the analysis, the writer tries
to show the main character’s motivation of survival in achieving freedom that
reveal through the main character’s conflicts. Theories that were presented in
chapter two will be used to answer the formulated problems.
A. The Characterization of the Main Characters
Character has various types. As Abrams (1981: 20-21) stated characters in
the novel are divided into major and minor character. The major character takes
the important role and becomes the focus from the beginning until the end of the
play, while the minor character is the character that appears in certain setting.
According to that theory, in Elie Wiesel’s Night, Elie is categorized as the major
or main character because he plays the most important role in the play and as the
focus of the story as well. Chlomo Wiesel is categorized as the minor character in
the novel. That character supported the main characters where that character
24
25
involves in conflicts with the main character. That is why it becomes necessary
for the writer to analyze that character in order to reveal the relation of Elie’s
motivation of survival in achieving freedom with Elie’s conflicts.
In order to find out the characteristics of the main characters, Murphy’s
(1972: 161-173) theories of characterizations are applied. They are personal
description, character as seen by another, speech, past life, reaction, conversation
of others, direct comment, thought, and mannerisms. However, from those nine
methods, the author only makes use some of them.
1. The Description of Elie Wiesel
a. Religious
According to Murphy (1972: 164) in Understanding Unseens, we can
understand the characters deeper through nine methods, two of them are through
their speech and mannerism. The author can give the readers an insight into the
character by seeing whenever the character speaks or having conversation with
others and stated his/her opinion. The author can also describe a person’s
mannerisms, habits, or idiosyncrasies which may tell us something about the
character (Murphy, 1972: 173). Elie in the beginning of the story is described as a
religious boy who fully believes the existence of God in life as the one who
brought peace, love, justice, help, and all the good things in life (Wiesel, 1982: 1-
26). Elie’s religiosity can be seen through his habits that show his interest in
learning things that are related to his religion. As stated in the following
statement,
26
“I was twelve. I believed profoundly. During the day I studied Talmud,and at night I ran to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of theTemple” (Wiesel, 1982: 1).
Although, he was a young boy, Elie Wiesel already interested in studying Talmud,
it is kind of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics,
customs, and history. It is a central text of mainstream Judaism. Elie has a friend,
named Moshe the Beadle, who acts also as a master of Jewish’s mysticism
Cabbala who taught him so many things about Talmud and Cabbala. His relation
with Moshe the beadle and his religious activities like studying Talmud and
Cabbala have made him a religious boy.
Another part that also describes Elie’s religiosity can be seen through the
way Elie and his family always perform every Jewish religious ritual such as the
Passover. It is showed in the following quotation,
“The week of Passover. The weather was wonderful… There were nolonger any synagogues open. We gathered in private houses; the Germanwere not to be provoked. Practically ever rabbi’s flat became a house ofprayer… The bible bade us rejoice during the seven days of the feast, to behappy…” (Wiesel, 1982: 8).
Passover is a Jewish holy day and festival commemorating the Hebrews' escape
from enslavement in Egypt. During the previous Passovers, the Jewish always go
to synagogue to celebrate it. At that time, although the Jewish were prevented to
go to synagogue during the Passover, Elie and his family kept celebrating it even
they had to do it in home. It describes Elie and his family’s religious life, even
they face a condition where they do not have a chance to go to the synagogue, and
they are still celebrating it at home.
27
At the time of the deportation where Elie and his family have to leave their
house, Elie spent some of his time just to pray (Wiesel, 1982: 16). When he was
going to be deported, he wanted to see his house for the last time where the house
has become an eye witness for his religiosity development as can be seen in the
quotation below,
“I looked at our house, where I had spent so many years in my search forGod, in fasting, in order to hasten the coming of the Messiah…” (Wiesel,1982: 16).
It shows that he trusted on God’s help and mercy for everything happen in his life.
As we can see from Elie’s speech and mannerism, we can conclude that he is a
religious boy, but later on in the story, during his life in the concentration camp,
Elie begins to question about God’s existence.
b. Loving
In the camp, Elie also shows his characteristic as a loving person. He cares
and loves his father so much. He prevents his father from sleeping in the outside,
in the freezing temperature because he believes that to fall a sleep means to die.
He does not want to lose his father to death and because of that when he sees his
father starting to fall a sleep he wakes him up (Wiesel, 1982: 85). His love for his
father also can be seen when he was crying while preventing other Jewish in the
wagon trying to throw his father out because they thought his father was already
dead (Wiesel, 1982: 94). Elie’s love for his father can also be seen from how he
encourages his father. When his father thinks that he cannot continue, Elie
encourages him not only by yelling at him but also by seizing him in the hand and
walk together to a saver place (Wiesel, 1982: 100).
28
Elie is very concerned about his father condition. It can be seen in the
following statement, “Father! I’ve been looking for you for so long… Where were
you? Did you sleep? … How do you feel?” (Wiesel, 1982: 101). He found out that
his father was not in a good condition. Chlomo Wiesel has gone ill. He was
burning with fever. Elie took a good care of his father by bringing him a cup of
coffee although Elie has to struggle like a wild beast just to get it (Wiesel, 1982:
101). Elie also managed to exchange his ration of bread with beds for his father.
He did anything he can just to save his father but unfortunately dysentery took his
father away forever.
The author can give the readers a clue to a person’s character by letting the
reader know how that person reacts to various situation and events (Murphy,
1972: 164). By seeing Elie reaction of showing how much he cares and loves his
father shows that he is a loving person.
c. Brave
Elie Wiesel is also described as a brave boy. He shows his bravery during
his time in Buna. One of his bravery was when the assistant of the quarantine tent
asked for Elie’s shoes but he refused to give it away, “I refused to give him my
shoes. They were all I had left” (Wiesel, 1982: 46). Another case is when he
refused Franek’s demand on possessing his gold crowned tooth. Although Elie
was threatened by Franek, he still refused to give away his crown. Unfortunately,
at the end of the day, Elie has to lose his tooth for nothing (Wiesel, 1982: 52-53).
Elie’s bravery can also be seen in the following quotation,
“We were not afraid. And yet, if a bomb had fallen on the blocks, it alonewould have claimed hundreds of victims on the spot. But we were no
29
longer afraid of death, at any rate, not of that death. Every bomb thatexploded filled us with joy and gave us new confidence in life” (Wiesel,1982: 57).
Elie shows that he no longer fears death since living in a concentration camp is
scarier than death itself. For him, every bomb that exploded gave him joy and
hope for freedom.
2. The Description of Chlomo Wiesel
a. Wise
Chlomo Wiesel is the father of Elie Wiesel. He was described as a well
educated person and an unsentimental man as Elie Wiesel stated in “My father
was a cultured, rather unsentimental” (Wiesel, 1982: 2). He also considered as a
wise person. It can be seen from Elie’s statement below,
“The Jewish community in Sighet held him in the greatest esteem. Theyoften used to consult him about public matters and even about privateones” (Wiesel, 1982: 2).
From the quotation it can be seen how Chlomo Wiesel plays an important role in
the Jewish Community in Sighet. People often came to Chlomo and ask for his
opinions or advices about many things either public matters or private ones.
Another part that shows Chlomo’s influence in the society is when he was asked
for his opinion about the situation the Jewish had.
“Some of the prominent members of the community came to see myfather—who had highly placed connections in the Hungarian police—toask him what he thought of the situation” (Wiesel, 1982: 8).
The statement above also shows Chlomo’s important role in society. Chlomo has
good connection with the authorities. And that is why the Jewish community came
to him and asks his opinion about the new situation they have now. It was the
30
situation where all Jewish must wear yellow star. Instead of describing a character
directly the author can describe a person through the eyes and opinions of another.
This method can give the impression of shape, cleanliness, firmness, smoothness,
color, etc (Murphy, 1972: 164). By using that theory, others view of Chlomo
shows that he is a wise man and as a wise man, Chlomo’s opinion and advices are
always needed.
b. Loving
Chlomo is also pictured as a loving person. Although he is an
unsentimental person and rarely shows his emotion we still can see his care and
love toward family and others. During the time in the concentration camp,
Chlomo’s love toward Elie can be seen clearly. He tries to protect his son with all
the strength left. One day, Chlomo brought his son a present,
“My father had brought me a present—half a ration of bread obtained inexchange for a piece of rubber, found at the warehouse, which would do tosole a shoe” (Wiesel, 1982: 69).
From Elie’s statement above it can be seen how Chlomo loves his son so much.
He brought his son a half ration of bread that he got by exchanging a piece of
rubber that Chlomo found at the warehouse. Chlomo knows that food is important
for the body to gain strength. Instead of having the bread for himself, he gave it to
his son. Chlomo’s care and love for his son also seen in how he woke Elie up and
prevent him to fall a sleep in the snow.
“Don’t let yourself be overcome by sleep, Eliezer. It’s dangerous to fallasleep in the snow. You might sleep for good. Come on, come on. Get up”(Wiesel, 1982: 84).
31
Chlomo knows that if his son fall asleep in the snow, he might not be able to wake
up again or in other words he will die. That is why Chlomo keeps his son awake.
B. Elie Wiesel’s Internal and External Conflict
Conflict in its broadest sense means “struggle or fight”, furthermore, it
means “opposition, differences, or class of opinions, desire, etc., as the examples
are the conflict between one’s duty and one’s desire, a conflict of interest between
the achievement of the one aim and of another” (Oxford Advanced Learner’s
Dictionary, 1989: 245). It means that a conflict can be physical which involve
other persons or it can also in form of psychological conflict which only happens
inside someone’s mind. It is similar to what Cofer and Appley stated that conflicts
may arise between motives, goals, or responses but is meaningfully conceived
only in terms of incompatible actions tendencies as one may speak, for example,
of a conflict between desire and fear, on the motivational side, or between
anticipated pleasure and pain, on the side of the end state resulting from action
(1968: 413). Human is a complex person full with desires, fears, ideas, and goals.
That is why a conflict may easily happen in someone’s life and in this case is in
Elie Wiesel’s life.
Perrine stated in his book, Story and Structure, that there are two kinds of
conflict; they are internal and external conflict. The internal conflict or
psychological conflict is a struggle within a person, or a struggle of a person
against himself. The individual of himself is facing a kind of complicated situation
in which he or she should choose the best alternative according to his or her
32
consideration (1970: 54). Perrine defined External conflict as a struggle which
involves a character and other things outside the character himself. There are three
categories of external conflict, which are struggle against nature, a struggle
against another person, and a struggle against society. A struggle against nature
represents man versus forces of nature, the difficulties and the danger; a struggle
against another person concerns with a kind of a struggle between one person and
another, many popular fictions are based in this conflict; a struggle against society
is a struggle about a man values in his society (Perrine, 1970: 59). Elie Wiesel had
lived a horrible life in the concentration camp. During his life there, he had faced
not only the conflict that happens inside of him but also the conflict that took
place outside himself which involving other elements such as other persons or
even nature. In other words Elie Wiesel had faced many conflicts, both internal
and external during his life in the concentration camp. It is similar to Perrine’s
theory which stated that conflict in literary work may also consist of multi
conflicts or more than one conflict (1974: 44). Because of that, to make it easier to
analyze, the writer analyzes the conflict separately Internal and External.
1. Elie Wiesel’s Internal Conflicts
In psychology, Burgon and Ruffner placed the internal conflict or inner
conflict or intrapersonal conflict as the first level of conflict (1977: 484).
According to Rodman, this first level of conflict happens inside the heart and
mind of the protagonist (1964: 363). So, Elie’s internal conflicts must only
happen inside himself. Elie’s first internal conflict happens at the reception center
for Auschwitz, Birkenau. Birkenau is the place where the SS officers did the
33
selection for the Jewish at that time. Dr. Mengele, a SS officer, leads the selection.
He uses a conductor’s baton to determine whether the Jewish live or die by
moving the baton to the left or to the right. Before the selection comes to his turn,
Elie and his father were forced by another prisoner to lie about their age in order
to pass the selection (Wiesel, 1982: 28). The internal conflict is started when Elie
was asked by Dr.Mengele.
“How Old are you?” he asked, in an attempt at a paternal tone of voice.“Eighteen.” My voice was shaking.“What’s your occupation?Should I say that I was a student?“Farmer,” I heard myself say (Wiesel, 1982: 29).
Elie was asked about his age and occupation. The conflict itself is closely related
to Elie’s answers toward the questions. Rodman suggested that inner conflict
refers to a struggle that happens inside the heart and mind of the protagonist
(1964: 363). The struggle that occurs inside Elie’s mind is a conflict on what
answers he should give to Dr. Mengele. It is a struggle of making a decision
whether he should answer the questions by telling the truth or should he lie about
his age and occupation just like what the prisoner has asked him to. He finally lied
about his age and occupation. Another internal conflict rises after he saw the
baton moved left. Once again, he has a struggle inside his mind about which
direction that actually means “good” and which direction that means “bad”. It is
similar to what Cofer and Appley stated that a conflict can be inform of struggle
inside someone’s mind about what he/she will get as the result of the action taken
before (1968:413). There is a struggle inside Elie’s mind about what he will get as
the result of the action of Dr. Mengele’s baton. Confused by his conflict, Elie
34
thinks of another option that might become a better solution for him. If later he
finds that the “left” sign means to die in the crematory, than he will break from the
ranks and throw himself into the electric barbed wire (Wiesel, 1982: 31). Elie’s
wanted to avoid the slow and painful death and prefer to have a fast and less
painful death. Later on, he found out that the “left” sign means to live for another
day and his answers had saved him for awhile.
Elie faces another internal conflict during another selection that is held in
Buna. Similar to the previous selection, Dr. Mengele will decide who shall live
and who shall be sent to death. Before Elie gets his turn, a thought crosses his
mind. The conflict is started when the time finally comes to his turn to walk pass
Dr. Mengele.
“I ran without looking back. My head was spinning: you’re too thin,you’re too weak, you’re too thin, you’re good for the furnace….” (Wiesel,1982: 68).
From the quotation above, it can be seen what actually Elie’s internal conflict is.
The conflict is the struggle inside his mind about the result of the selection
process. It is similar to what Cofer and Appley suggested that conflict can be a
struggle between thoughts on the side of the end state resulting from the action
(1968: 413). It is a struggle of his thought about whether he will pass the selection
or not.
Another internal conflict of Elie Wiesel is the struggle between his
religious side and his logic mind. It is related to what Abrams mentioned in A
Glossary of Literary Terms that a conflict can be between opposing desires or
values in the protagonist’s own temperament (1981: 159). Elie’s conflict is a
35
conflict between his opposing desire from his religious side and his logic mind
toward his ideology of God. His religious side told him to believe in God while
his logic mind told him to deny his God’s existence. His logic mind is supported
by his past experience. He had faced moments which shows that God is no longer
existed. He had seen the moments where he found that there are no God’s help or
mercy given to the oppressed Jewish. One of the moments was when he saw the
Germans soldier burning babies and little children alive (Wiesel, 1982: 30). The
moment has started an internal struggle inside Elie’s mind.
“For the first time, I felt revolt rise up in me. Why should I bless Hisname? The Eternal, Lord of the Universe, the All-Powerful and Terrible,was silent. What had I to thank Him for” (Wiesel, 1982: 31).
Elie’s religious side forced him to keep on believing in God while his logic mind
forced him to stop believing in his God by giving him reasons of why he should
stop believing. From the quotation it can be seen how Elie’s logic mind tries to
show to Elie that there are no more reasons for Elie to keep on believe in God
because God Himself was not even there to help the babies and the little children.
The horrible moments that he saw has brought a great impact toward him.
“Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my souland turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if Iam condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never” (Wiesel, 1982: 32).
The horrible moments have influenced him so much. Elie then decided to stop
believing in God. He uses the word “murdered” to show how those moments had
made him lost his faith in God. Elie Wiesel has become a completely different
person after those moments that he saw. He is no longer the same child he was
(Wiesel, 1982: 34).
36
Elie’s disbelief in God continues as he thinks that instead of helping the
oppressed Jewish, God troubled the Jewish mind and crippled bodies by having
them crowed together just to celebrate the ceremony of Rosh Hashanah (Wiesel,
1982: 63). Rosh Hashanah is a ceremony of Jewish New Year. During the
ceremony of Rosh Hashanah, Elie’s mind keep on questioning why he should
bless his God just to make sure that his decision not to believe in God is a right
decision.
“Why, but why should I bless Him? In every fiber I rebelled. Because Hehad thousands of children burned in His pits? Because He kept sixcrematories working night and day, on Sundays and feast days? Because inHis great might He had created Auschwitz, Birkenau, Buna, and so manyfactories of death? How could I say to him: “Blessed art Thou, Eternal,Master of the Universe, Who chose us from among the races to be torturedday and night, to see our fathers, our mothers, our brothers, end in thecrematory? Praised be Thy Holy Name, Thou Who hast chosen us to bebutchered on Thine altar?” (Wiesel, 1982: 64).
From the quotation above, we can see another attempt of Elie’s logic mind in
order to show Elie that there are no more reasons for him to praise, to worship, or
to bless God because what God had brought for the Jewish were all the terrible
things and even death itself.
Another Elie’s internal conflict was during the Day of Atonement or Yom
Kippur. During Yom Kippur, all the religious Jewish usually fast. The conflict is
on whether he should fast as what a religious Jewish do or should not fast. This
conflict related to Cofer and Appley’s suggestion which stated that a conflict may
arise between responses toward something (1968:413). Elie’s intrapersonal
conflict is between what response he should take toward the fasting tradition of
Yom Kippur. Elie chose not to fast not only because his father forbade him to do
37
so but also because there is another more important reason. He found that there
was no more reason why he should fast since he is no longer accepted God
(Wiesel, 1982: 66).
One day, in the middle of January, Elie’s right foot began to swell because
of the cold. He was unable to put it on the ground and because of that; he went to
a doctor to be examined. He found that he needs an operation in order to be able
to walk again. He was staying at the hospital when he heard his neighbor said that
there will be a selection also in the hospital. His neighbor told him that it is better
for Elie to get out of the hospital before the next selection. This information and
suggestion creates an intrapersonal conflict. There is a struggle inside Elie’s mind
toward his neighbor statement and suggestion.
“But perhaps my faceless neighbor, fearing that he would be among thefirst victims, simply wanted to drive me away, to free my bed in order togive himself a chance to survive. Perhaps he just wanted to frighten me.Yet, what if he were telling the truth? I decided to await events” (Wiesel,1982: 75).
From the quotation we can see what the struggle was about. It was about whether
his neighbor’s opinion is true or false, whether he should believe it or not. Elie
decided to take an action of waiting because for now, he concerned more on his
foot. He wanted to be cured.
Other Elie’s internal conflicts involved his father’s existence. But before
looking to Elie’s internal conflicts that involved his father’s existence, there are
some moments that were important. Those moments become important because
those moments influenced Elie’s mind. The first moment is when Rabbi Eliahou
came to Elie and his father and asked whether they see his son or not. Elie
38
remembered the moment when Rabbi Eliahou’s son had seen his father
grounding, limping, and staggering back to the rear of the column but instead of
helping his father, Rabbi’s son continued to run on in front. It seems to Elie that
Rabbi’s son is trying to make distance between him and his father (Wiesel, 1982:
87). After thinking back on what Rabbi’s son has done, a thought crossed Elie’s
mind.
“A terrible thought loomed up in my mind: he had wanted to get rid of hisfather! He had felt that his father was growing weak, he had believed thatthe end was near and had sought this separation in order to get rid of theburden, to free himself from an encumbrance which could lessen his ownchances of survival” (Wiesel, 1982: 87).
His thought has made him afraid that he might do the same thing like what
Rabbi’s son has done. He did not want to become like what Rabbi Eliahou’s son
had become. The second moment is when Elie saw a boy fighting his own father
just for some bread to eat (Wiesel, 1982: 96). These two moments had shown to
Elie how valuable a life is to someone and because of that, a person is willing to
do anything just in order to survive. It penetrates deep into his mind and
influenced his way of thinking. It can be seen in the conflict bellow.
“It was daytime when I awoke. And then I remembered that I had afather… I had known that he was at the end, on the brink of death, and yetI had abandoned him.I went to look for him.But at the same moment this thought came into my mind: “Don’t let mefind him! If only I could get rid of this dead weight, so that I could use allmy strength to struggle for my own survival, and only worry about myself”. Immediately I felt ashamed of my self, ashamed forever” (Wiesel,1982: 101).
On one morning, Elie realized that he has a father and had abandoned him, which
is why he decided to find his father. Elie’s first internal conflict that involved his
39
father existence is the conflict in his mind between two ideas. The first idea is to
find his father and the second idea is not to find his father. But because of the
feeling of ashamed that he feels to himself, he went to find his father (Wiesel,
1982: 101).
One day, the head of the block came and saw Elie’s father has become
very ill. He told Elie that there is nothing that Elie can do for his father. He told
Elie that he should not forget that in a concentration camp every man has to fight
for himself and not to think of anyone else. Even of his father. The head told Elie
that in the concentration camp there are no fathers, no brothers, and no friends
because everyone lives and dies for himself alone (Wiesel, 1982: 105). Elie
listened to the head of the block without interrupting. It turns out that the words
given by the Head of the block to Elie, have created a conflict in Elie’ mind.
“He was right, I thought in the most secret region of my heart, but I darednot admit it. It’s too late to save your old father. I said to myself. Youought to be having two rations of bread, two rations of soup….Only a fraction of a second, but I felt guilty. I ran to find a little soup togive my father” (Wiesel, 1982: 105).
The conflict was on whether he should listen to what the Head of the block has
said and let his father die or not to listen to it and try to save his father. This
conflict that Elie faced is related to a situation which according to Rossiter and
Pearce as a Self-estrangement. In psychology, there is such a situation which is
considered as Self-estrangement. The term Self-estrangement presumes that each
of us has within us an inner self that consist of what we really are, what we really
believe, and what we really think. Rossiter and Pearce suggested that internal
struggle that accompanies self-estrangement forces us to choose between
40
behaviors consistent with our own self-image and behaviors with another’s
opinion of how we should act or think (1975: 154). Elie Wiesel has to choose
whether to do what he thinks he should do or to do what others think he should do
which in this case is the opinion of the Head of the block.
Elie’s internal conflicts that involved his father’s existence were related to
what Burgon and Ruffner suggested. According to them, intrapersonal conflict
results when an individual, on the basis of his or her own behavior or other related
experiences, perceives himself or herself in a manner inconsistent with previous
held notions of self-concept (1977: 484). In the previous paragraphs, it is
mentioned that Elie Wiesel does not want to become like what Rabbi Eliahou’s
son has become, a boy who considered his father as his burden and may lessen his
chance to survive. Although all the resolutions of Elie’s conflict related to his
father existence shows that he loves his father and take a good care of him,
unfortunately, at the end of the story it can be seen how Elie’s abandoned his
father. As an example was when he saw his father beaten by the officer, he did not
move to help (Wiesel, 1982: 106). Another proof which shows that Elie has
abandoned his father is his own statement.
“His last word was my name. A summons, to which I did not respond(Wiesel, 1982: 106).
When he knows that his father has died, Elie did not cry and what worst is that he
felt free by his father death (Wiesel, 1982: 106). There is an inconsistency
between what he thinks he is, what he wanted to become and with what Elie had
become at the end of the story.
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2. Elie Wiesel’s External Conflicts
Perrine in Story and Structure defined External conflict as a struggle
which involves a character and other things outside the character himself. There
are three categories of external conflict, which are struggle against nature, a
struggle against another person, and a struggle against society. A struggle against
nature represents man versus forces of nature, the difficulties and the danger; a
struggle against another person concerns with a kind of a struggle between one
person and another, many popular fictions are based in this conflict; a struggle
against society is a struggle about a man values in his society (1970: 59).
In the concentration camp, Elie faces several external conflicts. Elie has
conflicts with several people in the camp and one of them was his own father.
Similar to Perrine’s theory of external conflict which stated that one form of
external conflict can be in form of a struggle between one person and another
(1970: 59). One of Elie’s conflicts with his father is when his father came to Elie
and gave him his knife and spoon.
“Look, take this knife,” he said to me. “I don’t need it any longer. It mightbe useful to you. And take this spoon as well. Don’t sell them. Quickly!Go on. Take what I’m giving you!” (Wiesel, 1982: 71).
Interpersonal conflict may arise when individuals fail to share perceptions of
others (Burgoon and Ruffner, 1977: 485-486). Elie’s father intention is to give his
spoon and knife. Chlomo Wiesel gives his son his precious belongings which
were a knife and a spoon because Chlomo thinks that he will not be able to see his
son anymore. It is because he must stay in the camp while Elie and other prisoners
must leave the camp. The conflict happens when Elie refused his father’s
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perceptions about what is going on at that time and about things that might happen
later.
“Don’t talk like that, father.” (I felt that I would break into sobs) “I don’twant you to say that. Keep the spoon and knife. You need them as much asI do. We shall see each other again this evening, after work.” (Wiesel,1982: 71).
By looking at Perrine’s suggestion, that a conflict itself is a clash of action, ideas,
desires, or will between two individual (1974: 44), there is a clash between
Chlomo and Elie on idea, desire and action. Elie refused his father action of
giving him the spoon and the knife that his father gives and Elie also refused to
accept his father thought or idea that they will not be able to see each other again
because Elie believes that they will see each other again soon (Wiesel, 1982: 71).
Another conflict between Elie and his father was during the evacuation to
Gleiwitz. It is started when they reached a deserted village and ordered to rest
where Elie decided to lay down and fell asleep. The conflict was when Elie’s
father forced Elie to not to fall a sleep in the snow.
“Don’t let yourself be overcome by sleep, Eliezer. It’s dangerous to fallasleep in the snow. You might sleep for good. Come on, come on. Get up.”(Wiesel, 1982: 84).
Elie’s father did not want Elie to fall asleep in the snow because it is very
dangerous. It was hard for Elie to get up because he was too exhausted to do that
and he also felt the snow so tempting. Elie felt the snow layer not only like a
warm gentle carpet but also like a fluffy bed. But Chlomo knows that to fall
asleep in the snow means to sleep for good or to die. By looking at the definition
offered by Perrine, that a conflict itself can be defined as a clash of desires or will
between two people (1974: 44). It can be seen that the struggle was between Elie’s
43
desire to sleep and Chlomo’s desire not to let his son fall asleep. Elie came up
with a solution for their conflict. He tells his father that they can sleep one after
another where one will stay awake to watch while another sleeps and Chlomo
accepted his son’s offers (Wiesel, 1982: 85).
Other external conflicts were the conflicts between Elie and other
prisoners. One of them happened at Birkenau. It was when a prisoner asked about
Elie and his father’s age.
“Here, Kid, how old are you?”“I’m not quite fifteen yet”“No. Eighteen.”“Fool. Listen to what I say.”Then he questioned my father, who replied:“Fifty.”The other grew more furious than ever.“No, not fifty. Forty. Do you understand? Eighteen and forty” (Wiesel,1982: 28).
From the quotation above it can be seen how a prisoner forced his idea about Elie
and his father’s age. Related to the definition of conflict which stated that conflict
itself is a clash of action, ideas, desires, or will between two individual, or among
people in the story (Perrine, 1974: 44), the prisoner forced his idea about Elie and
his father’s age and wanted Elie and his father to accept it. From the quotation it
can be seen how Elie tried to refuse what the prisoner has offered. Elie repeated
his answer as the form of refusing the prisoner’s intention. The prisoner also
refuses Elie’s answer and keeps on insisting his idea by saying “Fool. Listen to
what I say” (Wiesel, 1982: 28).
There is a conflict between Elie and the Jew dentist from Czechoslovakia.
The conflict is when Elie refused the dentist desire to take Elie’s gold crown
44
tooth. Elie refused to give it away because he believes that the gold tooth might be
useful to me one day to buy something—bread or life (Wiesel, 1982: 50).
Burgoon and Ruffner suggested that interpersonal conflict may arise when the
goals of two individuals are incompatible and interpersonal conflict always refers
to an indivisible goal or material reward (1977:485-486). In this case, the two
incompatible goals are Elie’s goal which is to keep his gold crown, and the
dentist’s goal which is to posses Elie’s gold crown. The gold tooth has become the
reference of the conflict between them as it plays the role as the material reward.
The conflict of Elie and Franek was similar to the conflict of Elie and the
dentist. Franek wanted Elie’s gold tooth but unfortunately Elie refused to give it
away. The conflict arose because of Elie and Franek has incompatible goals.
When a conflict occurs, the individual that are involved in the conflict will use
either prosocial strategies or antisocial strategies in order to influence each other’s
or to win the conflict (Malloy and McMurray, 1996: 186). Anti-social strategy is a
strategy of resolving a conflict by using behaviors which are not acceptable to
other people or society such as threatening, stealing, and taking by force and often
ended with a win-lose solution. Prosocial strategy is a strategy of resolving a
conflict by using behaviors such as negotiation or barter which ended in a “win-
win” condition (Malloy and McMurray, 1996: 203). In order to possess Elie’s
gold tooth, Franek uses an antisocial strategy. In this case, Franek anti-social
strategy was by threatening Elie. By threatening Elie, Franek assumed that Elie
will be scared and willing to give the gold crown tooth away.
45
Another Elie’s external or interpersonal conflict is the conflict that he had
against Idek the Kapo. It was when Idek leapt on Elie and hitting him in the chest,
on the head, throwing him down, and blows violently until Elie was covered with
blood (Wiesel, 1982: 50). Instead of fighting back, Elie chose to bite his lips to
stop himself from screaming with pain and because of his silence; Idek stopped
his action of hitting Elie and sent Elie back to work.
Elie Wiesel had another conflict against a prisoner during the journey to
Gleiwitz. It was when someone was laying full length on top of Elie and made
Elie unable to breathe. A thought crossed his mind at that moment.
“This was the end—the end of the road. A silent death, suffocation…“I tried to get rid of my invisible assassin. My hole will to live wascentered in my nails. I scratched. I battled for a mouth of air. I tore atdecaying flesh which did not respond…” (Wiesel, 1982: 89).
The quotation shows how Elie struggled to breath; he struggled against the body
that was laying fully on top him. He was finally able to create a little hole through
which he could breathe (Wiesel, 1982: 90).
During their time both in camp and at evacuation journey, Elie and his
father actually had another type of conflict. It is a conflict between them and the
nature. Perrine defined External conflict into three categories which one of them is
struggle of man versus forces of (1970: 59). Looking at the theory proposed by
Perrine, it can be seen how Elie and his father faced the nature’s fury which in this
story is the cold winter. It was the struggle between them and the cold temperature
during the winter season. In the quotation bellow it can be seen how bad the
winter temperature had become.
46
“Winter had come. The days were short, and the nights had become almostunbearable. In the first hours of down, the icy wind cut us like a whip(Wiesel, 1982: 73).
In the quotation Elie shows how hard it is, just to pass one night because it is very
cold. The cold temperature was described by Elie like a whip that cut their body.
Although they were given winter clothes, yet still they felt that they would not be
able to deal with the temperature. During the evacuation journey the cold
temperature of winter shows its fury. Elie mentioned how fury the winter’s fury
by saying “an icy wind blew in violent gusts” (Wiesel, 1982: 81). During the
evacuation journey, Elie and his father struggled against the cold temperature that
already killed many prisoners.
“The icy wind strung my face. I bit my lips continually to prevent themfrom freezing. Around me everything was dancing a dance of death. Itmade my head reel. I was walking in a cemetery, among stiffened corpses,logs of wood (Wiesel, 1982: 84).
In the quotation it can be seen how the icy wind strung Elie’s face and tried to
freeze his lips. It also shows how the winter has killed so many prisoners during
the journey. Elie and his father survived and manage to finish the journey even in
the fury of the cold winter (Wiesel, 1982: 101).
C. The Internal and External Conflicts that reveal Elie’s Motivation of
Survival in Achieving Freedom
Arrived at Birkenau, Elie has become the oppressed as the entire Jewish
have. Enrich Fromm in The Fear of Freedom defined that the longing for freedom
is rooted in all who are oppressed (1960: 1). It means that freedom has become
something that the oppressed people wanted to achieve. As in this story, Elie who
47
has become a prisoner also wanted to achieve freedom. Freedom is something
important for every human being. Sartre mentioned that man is free, completely
free and the necessity of man himself is being free because man is condemned to
freedom which means man cannot not to be free or in other words a man must be
free (1956: 560). It means that every human being belongs to freedom. For the
oppressed, freedom has become something valuable and it has become a goal not
only for Elie Wiesel but also for all the oppressed Jewish. His goal of freedom
itself is derived from a motive. Frank J. Burno in Dictionary of Keywords in
Psychology proposed the definition of motive as a hypothetical state in an
organism used to explain its choices and goal-oriented behavior (1986: 140). In
this case, Elie’s hypotetical state is his normal life which is free from the
concentration camp, free from the slavery, free from the oppressor. Living in a
normal life like what Elie had before he was taken to the camp means he is able to
fulfill his psychological needs which are something impossible to do when living
in a concentration camp. The psychological needs are safety needs, belongingness
and love needs, esteem needs, cognitive needs, aesthetic needs, and self-
actualization. Those needs are the needs that every human being has and every
human being will try to fulfill. This desire of fulfilling the psychological needs is
called psychological motives. (Maslow’s theory in Atkinson, Atkinson, and
Hilgard, 1983: 317). Elie’s motive to live in a normal life has directs him toward
his goal. It is supported by Charles G. Morris’ theory which stated that motive is
an inner directing force –a need or want- that arouses the organism and directs
behavior toward a goal (1990: 408).
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Elie knows that freedom is not something that impossible to be attained.
His hope comes from his master’s story. Moshe de Beadle had survived and
managed to get free from the Germans and returned to Sighet to tell the people
about it and also warn them (Wiesel, 1982: 3-5).
But as Paulo Freire said in The Pedagogy of the Oppressed that by being
the oppressed side, freedom is something which the oppressed struggles for in
order to strive to get back their stolen humanity (1973:44). Elie must struggle for
freedom as his goal. An SS officer told the Jewish that being in a concentration
camp means to work. It is related to the inscription that Elie saw which stated
“Work is Liberty” (Wiesel, 1982: 38, 43). It means that in order to be free Elie
must work and in order to work Elie must live. It can be seen that there is a close
relation between freedom and survival. Elie must struggle to survive living in the
concentration camp just in order to be able to see the liberation day and be free at
once. Elie knows that the only chance for him to see the liberation day is to
survive living in the camp and to hope for the German to be defeated in War as
soon as possible. As Elie’s goal, freedom has created a motivation of survival.
Motivation is needed for someone in order to achieve the goal. It is supported by
Gerring and Zimbardo’s suggestion which defined motivation as the process of
starting, directing, and maintaining physical and psychological activities toward a
certain goal (Gerring and Zimbardo, 2002: 364). Elie’s motivation influenced his
mind, actions, and his behavior. His motivation directs and maintains his physical
and psychological activities toward his goal. His motivation grew stronger as he
knew that the German is losing the war to the Allies (Wiesel, 1982: 57-109). It is
49
similar to Petri’s idea that motivation is the forces acting on or within an organism
to initiate and direct behavior (1981: 12). Elie’s motivation can be seen in both
Elie’s internal and external conflicts.
1. Elie’s Motivation Revealed through Elie’s Internal Conflicts
In Elie’s first internal conflict that happened at the reception center for
Auschwitz, Birkenau. The internal conflict started when Elie was asked by
Dr.Mengele about his age and occupation. The conflict itself is closely related to
Elie’s answers toward the questions. The intrapersonal conflict that occurs inside
Elie’s mind was a conflict on what answers he should give to Dr. Mengele. It is a
struggle of making a decision whether he should answer the questions by telling
the truth or should he lie about his age and occupation just like what the prisoner
has asked him to. The conflict is between Elie’s response tendencies toward the
questions (Cofer and Appley, 1968: 413).
He finally lied about his age and occupation. The reason why he lied about
his age and occupation was because he sees an opportunity to live if he answers
“eighteen” and “farmer”. He might pass the selection if he is old enough and
strong enough and become useful to work for the Germans. He thinks that a
fifteen year old boy might no be useful for the Germans but an eighteen year old
boy might. A student might not useful because they are weak but a farmer might
be useful since a farmer is considered stronger than a student. All of those thought
were related to the information that Elie heard during just before entering
Birkenau (Wiesel, 1982: 24). The resolution of the conflict comes fast because it
was the most common type of conflict which according to Cofer and Appley is
50
categorized as the approach-avoidance type of conflict (1968: 433). In this type of
conflict, individual will choose the situation nearest to his goal in order to attain it
and avoid the situation that might fail his attempt in attaining the goal (Cofer and
Appley, 1968: 434). Elie has approached his desire to live. It shows how his
motivation of survival has influenced his decision in answering the question.
Elie’s another conflict is during the selection day in Buna. Similar to the
previous selection, this selection is also a selection between life and death. The
conflict was the struggle between two thoughts inside his mind. Looking to what
Abrams mentioned in Glossary of Literary Terms, that a conflict can be seen as
the conflict of the protagonist against fate, or against the circumstances that stand
between him and a goal he has set himself (1981: 159), it can be seen that in this
case, it was the conflict of Elie himself against his fate whether he shall live or
die. In this part, Elie’s motivation influences his mind and his action. There is
thought derived from his will to survive, his desire to keep on living. It was his
thought of an action to prevent Dr. Mengele see his number and write it down.
The possible action available is running when passing him. He finally managed to
pass the selection because, according to his friend Tibi and Yossi, he was running
too fast for Dr. Mengele to see and write his number (Wiesel, 1982: 69).
In another internal conflict of Elie Wiesel which is the struggle between
his religious side and his logic. His religious side told him to believe in God while
his logic told him to deny his God’s existence. Elie Wiesel is facing a complicated
situation where he has to choose between two things, to still believe in God’s
existence or to deny Him. It is hard for him to deny God’s existence because of
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his religiosity but on the other hand, it is also difficult to accept that God really
existed referring to all terrible things that he had seen before. He had seen the
moments where he found that there were no God’s help or mercy given to the
oppressed Jewish. His logic tries to show to Elie that there are no more reasons for
Elie to keep on believing because God Himself was not even there to help the
babies and the little children. If we relate this case to Perrine’s theory of conflict
as mentioned in his book, Story and Structure, where Perrine defines internal
conflict or psychological conflict as a struggle within a person where the
individual himself is facing a kind of complicated situation in which he or she
should choose the best alternative according to his or her consideration (1970: 54).
Elie’s motivation has influenced his mind and has made him decided not to
believe in God anymore. Elie’s motivation or his will to survive has made him see
that there is no God’s mercy shown in the camp and there is no God’s help offered
to the Jewish. His motivation of survival has shown him that in order to survive,
Elie must not rely on something that is not existed. Elie must rely on something
that existed and more reliable which is Elie’s own strength.
Elie’s motivation can also be seen in the conflict that happen during the
Day of Atonement or Yom Kippur. During the Yom Kippur, all religious Jewish
will fast. The conflict is on whether Elie should fast or not. Elie’s motivation
influenced his decision. Elie knows that in order to survive he needs strength, and
he knows that by fasting means a surer, swifter death (Wiesel, 1982: 66). His
desire toward his goal of freedom and his motivation of survival made him choose
not to fast in order to gain strength. Having strength means able to survive and by
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being able to survive just another day means being closer to his goal. It is similar
to Miller’s theory of motivation in Robert C. Beck’s Motivation Theories and
Principles which stated that the closer an organism is to a positive goal, the
stronger the motivation to approach that goal and the closer an organism to an
aversive goal, the stronger the motivation to escape or avoid the goal (1978:256).
This type of conflict is categorized as the approach-avoidance type of conflict
where in this type of conflict, individual will choose the situation nearest to his
goal in order to attain it and avoid the situation that might fail his attempt in
attaining the goal (Cofer and Appley, 1968: 434). His motivation has made Elie
approached his goal by choosing not to fast and avoided the thing that might fail
his attempt in achieving his goal such as the action of fasting.
In Elie’s conflict during his time in the hospital, Elie simply chose to have
his foot cured instead of believing his neighbor’s opinion and leave. Elie knows
that being cured means being able to work and survive. His will to survive has
made him stay and had an operation to cure his foot. In Elie’s internal conflicts
that involved his father’s existence, Elie’s motivation influences Elie’s mind. He
saw how important survival has become in two different moments. The first
moment is when Elie saw what Rabbi Eliahou’s son did. He leaves his father
behind in order to make distance between them. It seems that he wanted to get rid
of his own father, Rabbi Eliahou. He thinks that his father who turned weak has
become a burden to him which could lessen his own chances of survival (Wiesel,
1982: 87). Elie did not want to become like what Rabbi Eliahou’s son had
become. The second moment is when Elie saw a boy fight his own father just for
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some bread to eat (Wiesel, 1982: 96). These two moments had shown to Elie how
valuable a life is to someone and because of that, a person is willing to do
anything just in order to survive. The importance of survival has penetrated deep
into his mind and influenced his way of thinking. His mind tells him that he needs
all his strength to survive and what he needs is to start thinking about himself.
One day, the head of the block came and saw Elie’s father has become
very ill. He told Elie that there is nothing Elie can do for his father. He told Elie
that he should not forget that in a concentration camp every man has to fight for
himself and not to think of anyone else. Even of his father. The head told Elie that
in the concentration camp there are no fathers, no brothers, and no friends because
everyone lives and dies for himself alone. Elie listened to the head of the block
without interrupting. He faced another conflict in his mind. The conflict was on
whether he should listen to what the Head of the block has said and let his father
died or not to listen to it and try to save his father. Elie thinks that it is too late to
save his father. If he chooses not to save his father, he will have one extra soup
and bread which belong to his father. This conflict that Elie faced is related to a
situation which according to Rossiter and Pearce as a Self-estrangement. In
psychology, there is such a situation which considered as Self-estrangement. The
term Self-estrangement presumes that each of us has within us an inner self that
consist of what we really are, what we really believe, and what we really think.
Rossiter and Pearce suggested that internal struggle that accompanies self-
estrangement forces us to choose between behaviors consistent with our own self-
image and behaviors with another’s opinion of how we should act or think (1975:
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154). Elie Wiesel has to choose between his own self-image which is a loving boy
who cares for his father or another’s opinion which in this case is the opinion of
the Head of the block. Elie’s internal conflicts about his father were also related to
what Burgon and Ruffner suggested. According to them, intrapersonal conflict
results when an individual, on the basis of his or her own behavior or other related
experiences, perceives himself or herself in a manner inconsistent with previous
held notions of self-concept (1977: 484). In the previous lines, it is mentioned that
Elie Wiesel did not want to become like what Rabbi Eliahou’s son had become, a
boy who considered his father as his burden and may lessen his chance to survive.
Although all the resolutions of Elie’s conflict related to his father existence shows
that he loves his father and take a good care of him, unfortunately, at the end of
the story it can be seen how Elie’s motivation influenced his mind and action. His
motivation of survival forced his mind to stop thinking about his father. His will
to survive forced Elie to abandon his father. Dysentery has made Chlomo Wiesel
weak, and his weak condition has become a burden for Elie. In order to survive,
Elie must forget about his father. Finaly, Elie decided not to look after his father
anymore and focused on himself. It can be seen from how Elie did not react when
an officer beat his father violently (Wiesel, 1982: 105-106). Elie continue his
activities in the camp as if there is nothing happened and when his father
summons him, he did not response it (Wiesel, 1982: 106). There is an
inconsistency between what he thinks he is and what he wanted to become with
what Elie had become at the end of the story.
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2. Elie’s Motivation Revealed through Elie’s External Conflicts
In the concentration camp, Elie faced several external conflicts. The
conflicts were between him and his father. One of them was when his father came
to Elie and gives him his knife and spoon. Elie’s father knows that the knife and
spoon might be very useful for Elie. They might become something helpful for
Elie’s survival. That is why he insisted to give it to his son as for him self he
might not need it anymore. Chlomo thinks that he will not be able to see his son
anymore. It is because He must stay in the camp while Elie with other prisoners
must leave the camp. Another conflict that Elie faced that shows the importance
of survival is the conflict between Elie and his father was during the evacuation to
Gleiwitz. The conflict itself was when Elie’s father forced Elie not to fall a sleep
in the snow. Chlomo did not want Elie to fall asleep in the snow because it is very
dangerous. He knows that if Elie fall asleep in the snow, Elie will be dead. He
concerned his son’s survival. He tried to keep his son alive. It can be seen that the
struggle was between Elie’s desire to sleep and Chlomo’s desire not to let his son
fall asleep. Elie came up with a solution for their conflict. He tells his father that
they can sleep one after another where one will stay awake to watch while another
sleeps (Wiesel, 1982: 85). Elie offers this solution because he knows that they
need rest for a while in order to gain stranght to continue the journey. By having
strength to continue the journey means having a bigger chance to survive.
Elie’s motivation of survival also can be seen in Elie’s external conflict
with a prisoner in Birkenau. A prisoner forced his idea about Elie and his father’s
age. Elie accepted it because he sees an opportunity to stay alive if he lies about
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his age and his occupation. This thought related to some information that Elie
heard before reaching Birkenau (Wiesel, 1982:24). There were conflicts between
Elie and the Jew dentist from Czechoslovakia and Elie and Franek where both
Franek and the dentist wanted to take Elie’s gold tooth. Elie refused to give it
away because Elie believes that the tooth might be very useful for his survival. He
believes that the gold tooth might be useful to him one day such as to buy food or
perhaps it might safe his life (Wiesel, 1982: 50).
Elie’s another external or interpersonal conflict is the conflict that he had
against Idek the Kapo. It was when Idek leapt on Elie and hitting him in the chest,
on the head, throwing him down, and blows violently until Elie was covered with
blood (Wiesel, 1982: 50). Instead of fighting back, Elie chose to bite his lips to
stop himself from screaming with pain and because of his silence; Idek stopped
his action of hitting Elie and sent Elie back to work. It shows that Elie’s will to
survive has influenced his mind, action and behavior. He knows that if he fights
Idek back, he might die. But if he stay still and keep in silence, he might survive.
Elie Wiesel had another conflict against a prisoner during the journey to
Gleiwitz. It was when someone was laying full length on top of Elie and made
Elie unable to breathe. Elie struggled to breath; he struggled against the body that
was laying fully on top him in order to breathe. He refused to die. His motivation
forced him to act of creating a hole to breathe. He was finally able to create a little
hole through which he could breathe (Wiesel, 1982: 90). During their time both in
camp and at evacuation journey, Elie and his father actually had another type of
conflict. It is a conflict between them and the nature. Elie and his father faced the
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nature’s fury which in this story is the cold winter. It was the struggle between
them and the cold temperature during the winter season. It was their will to live
that made them manage to survive. Elie and his father have avoided the thing that
might kill them such as to fall asleep in the snow. At the end of the story, Elie
managed to survive until the liberation day. He has gone through so many
conflicts and able to get through. He achieved his goal of freedom (Wiesel, 1982:
109).
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CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION
In the last part of this thesis, the writer draws the conclusion of what is
discussed in Chapter IV of this study. After analyzing the novel Night, the writer
can conclude that the objective of the study is achieved as the writer gained the
answers for the problem formulations stated in chapter one. First is about
answering the description of Elie Wiesel and Chlomo Wiesel’s characterization.
Second is about answering Elie’s internal and external conflicts found in the story.
Third is about answering how Elie’s motivation revealed through his conflicts.
Elie is described as a religious boy. He fully believes the existence of God
in life as the one who brought peace, love, justice, help, and all the good things in
life (Wiesel, 1982: 1-26). In such a young age, Elie already learned things about
his religion such as Talmud. Elie and his family always perform every Jewish
religious ritual such as the Passover. Elie also described as a loving person. In the
camp, Elie also showed his characteristic as a loving person. He cares and loves
his father so much. He prevents his father from sleeping in the outside, in the
freezing temperature because he believes that to fall a sleep means to die. Elie’s
love for his father can also be seen from how he encourages his father and from
how he looked after his father when Chlomo Wiesel gone ill of dysentery. Elie
Wiesel is also described as a brave boy. He shows his bravery during his time in
the concentration camp by dare to refuse to give his shoes to the assistant of the
quarantine tent, refuses to give his gold tooth to the Dentist and Franek. Although
he is threatened by Franek, he still refuses to give away his crown. As we can see
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59
in the analysis, Chlomo Wiesel is described as a wise and loving person. As a
wise person, Chlomo Wiesel plays an important role in the society and often
asked by the Jewish society for his advices about many things either public
matters or private ones. Chlomo is also pictured as a loving person. During the
time in the concentration camp, Chlomo’s love toward Elie can be seen from how
he tries to protect his son with all the strength left.
As we move to the answer of the second and third problem formulation, it
can be seen that Elie has faced many internal and external conflicts during his
time in the concentration camp. Elie’s motivation of survival influenced every
conflict he has. Based on the things which are related to internal conflicts, the
internal conflicts can be divided into four categories. The first category is his
internal conflict related to the selection process. It happened in Birkenau and
Buna. The conflict was about making decision during the selection. His
motivation influenced his mind in making the decision. His mind forced Elie to
make decisions that can help him to achieve his goal of freedom. The second
category is his internal conflict related to God’s existence. It was a conflict
between his logic and his religiosity side. The conflict involved Elie’s religiosity
where he must decide whether to keep on believe in God or not and whether he
should rely on God’s help or should rely on his own strength in order to survive.
Elie’s motivation of survival influenced his mind in making the decision. Elie
choose to rely on his own strength because this action offers him a greater chance
to survive and achieve his goal. The third category is his internal conflict related
to his father’s existence. It was a struggle inside him about whether he should
60
keep on looking after his father or start to look after himself. Elie decided to stop
thinking and helping his father and start focusing on himself because his goal to
survive forced him to avoid things that might fail Elie’s attempt in achieving his
goal. The forth category is his internal conflict related to other person’s opinion or
idea. It was a conflict inside him between his own idea and other person’s idea. In
this case, his will to survive has made him chose things that might help him
achieve his goal and avoid things that might fail his attempt. Based on the things
which are related to his external conflicts, the external conflicts can be divided
into three categories. The first category is his external conflict related to his father
existence. The conflict was between the incompatible ideas of Elie and his father.
Elie’s motivation forced him to choose ideas that support his survival and help his
attempt to achieve his goal of freedom. The second category is his external
conflict related to other persons where his father is not included. The conflict was
between Elie and Franek, the dentist, the assistant of the camp, Idek the Capo and
other prisoners. It is also involved incompatible ideas, desires, and actions. In this
case, Elie’s motivation influenced his mind to choose ideas that support his
survival and help his attempt to achieve his goal of freedom. His motivation also
influenced his action as he only approaches things that can fulfill his goal. The
third category is his external conflict related to the nature. It was a conflict where
Elie and his father struggled against the fury of nature force which is the cold
temperature of the winter. Elie’s will to survive has motivated him not to give up
and keep on fighting although the weather is killing him.
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In conclusion, as being the oppressed, freedom has become a goal of Elie
Wiesel. Elie knows that in order to achieve his goal of freedom where he finally
see the liberation day and set free from the concentration camp, he needs a
motivation that directs and maintains his physical and psychological activities
toward his goal. This goal creates a motivation. His motivation is to survive living
in the concentration camp because Elie realizes that in order to achieve his goal he
must stay alive until the liberation day come. His motivation of survival which is
derived from his goal of freedom has influenced his mind, action, and his
behavior. The influences of his motivation are revealed through both his internal
and external conflicts.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Abrams, M.H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. New York: Holt, Reinhart andWinston. 1981.
Atkinson, Rita L., Richard C. Atkinson, and Ernest R. Hilgard, Introduction toPsychology. 8th ed. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc., 1983.
Beck, Robert C., Motivation Theories and Principles. New Jersey: EnglewoodCliffs, Prentice-Hall Inc., 1978.
Burgoon, Michael and Michael Ruffner. Human Communication. New York:Holt, Reinhart and Winston, 1977.
Burno, Frank J. Dictionary of Keywords in Psychology. Worcester: Billing andSons Ltd., 1986.
Cofer, C.N. and M.H. Appley. Motivation: Theory and Reaserch. New York: JohnWilley & Sons, Inc., 1968.
Freire, Paulo. The Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books,1973.
Fromm, Enrich. The Fear of Freedom. London: Broadway House, Routledge andKegan Paul Ltd., 1960.
Gerring, Richard J. and Philip G. Zimbardo. Psychology and Life. 16th ed. Boston:Allyn & Bacon, 2002.
Guralnik, David B. Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary. New Delhi:Oxford & IBH, 1975.
Holman, C. High and William Harmon. A Handbook to Literature. New York:Macmilan Publishing Company, 1986.
Hudson, W.H. An Introduction to the Study of Literature. London: Morrison &Gibb, Ltd., 1958.
Maggil, Frank N. Critical Survey of Long Fiction. New Jersey: Englewood Cliffs,Salem Press., 1983.
Malloy, Heidi L. and Paula McMurray, Conflict Strategies and Resolutions: PeerConflict in an Intergrated Early Childhood Classroom. Journal ofPsychology. Iowa: Iowa State University, 1996.
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McKean, Erin. The New Oxford American Dictionary. 2nd Edition. New York:Oxford University Press, Inc., 2005.
Morris, Charles G. Psychology: An Introduction. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc.,1990.
Murphy, M. J. Understanding Unseens: An Introduction to English Poetry and theEnglish Novel for Overseas Students. London: George Allen & Unwin,Ltd., 1972.
Perrine, Laurence. Literature, Structure, Sound, and Sense. New York: HarcourtBrace & World, Inc., 1974.
Perrine, Laurence. Story and Structure. 3rd Edition. New York: HarcourtBrace & World, Inc., 1970.
Petri, L. Herbert. Motivation: Theory and Research. Belmont: WadsworthPublishing Company, Inc., 1981.
Roberts, Edgar V. and Henry, E. Jacobs. Fiction: An Introduction to Reading andWriting. New Jersey: Englewood Cliffs Prentice Hall, Inc., 1987.
Rodman, Crosby, E. A Second Book of Plays. New York: The MacmilanCompany., 1964.
Rossiter, Charles, Jr. and Barnet Pearce. CommunicatingPersonally. Chicago: BobMerril, 1975.
Sartre, Jean Paul (translated by H.E. Barnes). Being and Nothingness. New York:Washington Square Press., 1956.
Summers, Della. Longman Dictionary of English Language and Culture. Essex:Longman Group UK Limited., 1992.
Wiesel, Elie. Night. New York: Bantam Books., 1982.
Online Sources:
“Critical Analysis of Elie Wiesel's Night”
http://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/103569.htmlaccessed on April, 06th 2009
“Contemporary-Literary-Criticism of Night”http://www.enotes.com/contemporary-literary-criticism/wiesel-elie-vol-165accessed on April, 06th 2009
64
Donadio, Rachel.‘The Story of Night”http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/books/review/Donadio-t.html.Accessed on May, 28th 2009,
Powell's City of Books , “Synopses & Reviews of Night”,http://www.powells.com/biblio?PID=27086&cgi=product&isbn=0553272535accessed on April, 06th 2009
65
APPENDIX
Summary of Elie Wiesel’s Night
The Nazis caused more destruction than just killing innocent Jews, they
destroyed their peace, God, and humanity. Elie Wiesel's Night, illustrates that by
telling his experience in the concentration camps. Elie begins to question his
strong feelings for God. He is left only with is memory of having privacy and
peace as he did in Sighet. Elie loses his respect of being treated as a human rather
than an animal. The experience of Night is fatal to Elie as it destroys his peace, his
God, and his humanity. Elie's faith for God weakens more and more. In the
beginning, Elie's love for the Lord is very powerful. “During the day, I studied
Talmud, and at night, I run to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the
temple” (1982: 1). Elie practices Judaism every day by going to the synagogue
where he prays. Elie first sees the crematories and the ditches that were deaths to
so many Jews. “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?” (1982: 31). Elie is unsure about God and
what he is doing to them. Elie is finally convinced that God has given up on him.
“I felt very strong. I was the accuser, God the accused. My eyes were open and
terribly alone in the world without God and without man. Without love or mercy”
(1982: 65). Elie no longer relies on God. He is on his own. By the end of the
book, Elie's faith for God has been so watered down, and it will take him a long
time to regain that faith. In the beginning of the book, Elie and his family lived
undisturbed and very peacefully. "A wind of calmness and reassurance blew
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66
through our houses" (1982: 7). Elie and his family had their own personal space
and just went with the flow. When Elie arrives at the camps, he soon realizes that
it won't be like at home at all. "Even if you were simply passing from one to the
other, several times a day, you still had to go through the baths every time" (1982:
38). Elie knew he would no longer have any privacy and peace as he is used to.
Near the end of the book, Elie witnesses a boy name Juliek who had brought his
violin with him because he loved playing so much. "When I awake, in the
daylight, I could see Juliek, opposite me, slumped over, dead, near him lay his
violin, smashed, trampled, a strange overwhelming little corpse" (1982: 47). Elie
is only left with the memory of happiness of his life in Sighet and his peace has
been completely destroyed. Elie's lifestyle has a very drastic change from when he
was living in Sighet to when he was at the death camps. Elie and his family
celebrate the Jewish holiday, Passover. "We drank, we ate, we sang. The bible
bade us rejoice during the seven days of the feast to be happy" (1982: 8). He is
able to honor this Jewish holiday like any other normal holiday as he always does
for Jewish tradition. When they arrive at the concentration camp, Elie begins to
realize that he will no longer be treated as he is at home. "Strip! Fast! Los! Keep
only your belts and shoes in your hand..." (1982: 32). When the Nazis tell him to
do something, then it'd to be done even if it violates his humanity. The Nazi's not
only handles the Jews dead bodies like animals, but also the other prisoners don't
think much of the dead bodies either. "’Throw out all the dead! All corpses
outside!’ The living rejoiced because there was more room". As the Jews die, they
are thrown out of the train like they are logs. Not only did the Nazis take Elie's
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humanity away, but also Elie take the humanity away from the other prisoners.
The concentration camps affected everybody in every way, not just death. The
Nazi's stripped all of the Jews of humanity. The experience of Night is fatal to
Elie as it destroys his peace, his God, and his humanity.
( http://www.essayexpress.com/essay/012040.html)