AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra
in English Letters
By
RM DONUM THEO KMP
Student Number: 994214209
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS
FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
PROBLEMS OF FAITH, HOPE, AND SUFFERING
AS REVEALED IN ELIEZER’S CHARACTER
DEVELOPMENT IN ELIE WIESEL’S NIGHT
AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra
in English Letters
By
RM DONUM THEO KMP
Student Number: 994214209
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS
FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
A Sarjana Sastra Undergraduate Thesis
PROBLEMS OF FAITH, HOPE, AND SUFFERING
AS REVEALED IN ELIEZER’S CHARACTER
DEVELOPMENT IN ELIE WIESEL’S NIGHT
By
RM DONUM THEO KMP
Student Number: 994214209
Approved by
Ni Luh Putu Rosiandani, S.S., M.Hum.
, 2008 Advisor
Theresia Enny Anggraini, Dra., M.A.
, 2008 Co-Advisor
A Sarjana Sastra Undergraduate Thesis
PROBLEMS OF FAITH, HOPE, AND SUFFERING
AS REVEALED IN ELIEZER’S CHARACTER
DEVELOPMENT IN ELIE WIESEL’S NIGHT
By
RM DONUM THEO KMP
Student Number: 994214209
Defended before the Board of Examiners on , 2008
and Declared Acceptable
BOARD OF EXAMINERS
Name Signature
Chairman : Dr. Francis Borgias Alip, M.Pd., M.A.
______________ _
Secretary : Drs. Hirmawan Wijanarka, M.Hum. ______________ _
Member : Dewi Widyastuti, S.Pd., M.Hum. ______________ _
Member : Ni Luh Putu Rosiandani, S.S., M.Hum.
______________ _
LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN
PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS
Yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini, saya mahasiswa Universitas Sanata Dharma : Nama : RM Donum Theo KMP
Nomor Mahasiswa : 99 4214 209
Demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan, saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul:
The Problems of Faith, Hope, and Suffering as Revealed in Eliezer's Character Development in Elie Wiesel's Night.
beserta perangkat yang diperlukan (bila ada). Dengan demikian saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma hak untuk menyimpan, me-ngalihkan dalam bentuk media lain, mengelolanya dalam bentuk pangkalan data, mendistribusikan secara terbatas, dan mempublikasikannya di Internet atau media lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu meminta ijin dari saya maupun memberikan royalti kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama saya sebagai penulis.
Demikian pernyataan ini yang saya buat dengan sebenarnya. Dibuat di Yogyakarta
Pada tanggal:
Yang menyatakan,
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In the last chapter of my years in the university, there was only unfaithfulness, despair, and yet suffering. However, all of my experiences in this composition were not mainly existing in novelty or originality of thought and feeling. I barely found them in the rhythm of the truth about literature and the soul of humanity.
In the twofold reality determined this undergraduate thesis, I am obliged for various reasons to a number of individuals. Among them are Bu Putu, who kindly assisted me in the making of this undergraduate thesis; Bu Enny and Bu Dewi for their advice; Robert SJ, who lent me Elie Wiesel's Night decades ago; all of my friends in Kampung Sastra ‘99: Nugi, Ade, Bayu, Meli, Nina, Iis, Poer, and many more, who support me in their own mysterious ways; mas Yoyok, who lifted me up from my computer illiteracy; mbak Vita and mas Ndono, who promoted me to graduation; my mother, A.M. Moertiningsih and my late father, F.A. Moedijono, for their eternal love; and my beautiful young lady, Etty S.N., who accompanies me restlessly.
At the end of my acknowledgements on this clumsy work, all I could ultimately hope is that all the intellectual, emotional, metaphysical, and technical assistance that was given and went into these naive pages would not have been in vain.
STATEMENT OF AGREEMENT... v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ... vi
ABSTRACT
RM DONUM THEO KMP. The Problems of Faith, Hope, and Suffering as Revealed in Eliezer's Character Development in Elie Wiesel's Night. Yogyakarta: Department of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University, 2008.
This undergraduate thesis aims at demonstrating the problems of faith, hope, and suffering through the main character development using the autobiography of Elie Wiesel, that is Night (2006). Using the World War II as the historical background, this autobiography is phenomenal in raising questions about God, tradition-religion, as well as humanity.
The present study requires two problems which show the activities conducted in the analysis part during the study of the autobiography. It begins with the character development of Eliezer as the main character. The character development of Eliezer is presented to result some findings which give significations to the second problem. The findings are applied to reveal the problem of faith, hope, and suffering through the character development of Eliezer.
ABSTRAK
RM DONUM THEO KMP. The Problems of Faith, Hope, and Suffering as Revealed in Eliezer's Character Development in Elie Wiesel's Night.
Yogyakarta: Jurusan Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Sanata Dharma, 2008.
Skripsi ini bertujuan untuk menunjukkan permasalahan-permasalahan iman, harapan, dan penderitaan melalui perkembangan karakter tokoh utama dengan menggunakan otobiografi karya Elie Wiesel, yaitu Night (2006). Dengan menggunakan Perang Dunia II sebagai latar belakang sejarah, karya otobiografi ini menjadi fenomenal dalam mengangkat beragam pertanyaan tentang Tuhan, tradisi dan agama, sebagaimana tentang kemanusiaan.
Skripsi kali ini merumuskan dua buah permasalahan yang dijadikan tuntunan, terutama pada bagian analisa, selama meneliti otobiografi ini. Hal ini dimulai dari perkembangan karakter Eliezer sebagai tokoh utama. Perkembangan karakter Eliezer disajikan untuk menghasilkan beberapa temuan penting untuk menjawab rumusan permasalahan kedua. Temuan-temuan tersebut kemudian diaplikasikan untuk menguak permasalahan iman, harapan, dan penderitaan melalui
perkembangan karakter Eliezer.
digunakan pendekatan filosofis untuk menandai permasalahan-permasalahan iman, harapan, dan penderitaan dalam perkembangan karakter Eliezer.
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Study
There is a big difference in expectation between reading a narrative in a daily newspaper and one in a literary work, say for example, an autobiography. While reading a daily newspaper, a reader comes across a narrative of a mass murder in some environment and the reader assumes that the account is admittedly true. The reader will look for complete information on the unusual account, using guidelines such as 5W + 1H, as a common tool for journalistic reading.
When reading a novel, the reader will no longer expect to engage with literal truths, true events, since one reads a literary work not for fact finding, but for pleasure, for some valuable insight, or perhaps for a sense of what an aspect of life means to the author of the novel.
However, reading autobiography of Elie Wiesel, Night (2006), there is an uncertainty whether I should read it with a sense of journalistic or do it in a sense of literary reading. As an autobiography, Night bears in mind several traces Wiesel’s experience during the World War II, particularly inside the Nazi's concentration camps.
that autobiography has simultaneously fact, that is experiece and fiction, that is reflection.
Night is based on history of World War II, but Wiesel demonstrated his
autobiography in literary narration that it provided characters with action and dialogues, plot, setting, et cetera. I continued reading and eventually found out that my literary reading has given not only an amusing and entertaining experience but also some insight about human predicament, about faith, hope, and suffering from the journey of Wiesel in the deadly concentration camps during the World War II. In addition, to the three interconnected problems: faith, hope, and suffering, I might refer to J. Christiaan Beker in Suffering and Hope, who argues that “when hope vanishes, faith has no ground and the intensity of suffering increases” (1987:14).
Night is a presentation of Elie Wiesel about his faith, his hope, and his suffering in
The historical background of the autobiography was the Holocaust, a term which is used to refer to the killing by the Adolf Hitler's Nazi of almost six million people simply because they were Jews, and in addition there were also 500,000 non-Jewish captives, during the World War II. The term holocaust was firstly introduced by Elie Wiesel, an American-Jewish author and survivor of Auschwitz, to explain some tragedy of suffering in religious sense as a 'whole offering' or a 'burnt offering'; and it is a word which is not without its problem since the Jews, or anyone who were exterminated, in no way willing to be sacrificial 'offerings' through torture, flames, gassing, hanging, shot to death without purpose, but to live. Anyway, Adolf Hitler's Nazi did not really mean to offer a 'sacrifice' but they were really intent on total extermination of the Jews (Kung, 1995:239).
Nowadays the term 'holocaust' is widely used to recognize a situation in which many things are destroyed and many people killed, especially because of war or a fire. Yet remains the term 'holocaust' which is usually applied with 'the', i.e. the Holocaust, refers only to the killing of millions of Jews by Adolf Hitler's Nazi from 1930s to 1940s.
As a matter of fact, the literary world of the Holocaust was firstly popularized by Elie Wiesel, a Nobel Peace Prize Winner in 1986, with his first book, written in Yiddish, Un di velt hot gesvign (1956; And the World Remained Silent), abridged as La Nuit (1958; Night). In English version, the book is known
as Night, an autobiographical account of a young boy's spiritual reaction to
the Holocaust (Merriam-Webster, 1995:1200).
Particularly in present study I would like to put my interest and attention to the character development of Elie Wiesel when he was dealing with his God, his faith, and his hope in his very young age. This would be the focus of the present analysis. I found out that the changing character of Eliezer is interesting since the changing happened in a very extreme situation that is in the Holocaust, and in his teenage period. Eliezer should deal with his religion, his tradition, his faith, his hope, his God all at once inside his daily suffering in a series of deadly concentration camps' activities. In my opinion, the main character seems to undergo a change and analysis on Eliezer, particularly on his thought, his dialogue, and his action, will reveal the character development.
Thus the present study will try to describe the character development of Eliezer in the autobiography of Elie Wiesel, Night. Using the findings from the character development, the analysis then goes further on discussing the problems of faith, hope, and suffering of Eliezer before and during his daily life in concentration camps in Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Therefore, the topic of the present study will be the problems of faith, hope, and suffering as revealed in the development of Eliezer as the main character in the autobiography of Elie Wiesel,
B. Problem Formulation
I need to organize the present study about the problems of faith, hope, and suffering as seen in the development of Eliezer as the main character in autobiography of Elie Wiesel, Night, into questions simply where I could treat them as guidelines in understanding the autobiography.
The order of the problem formulation is as follows:
1. How is the character development of Eliezer presented in Elie Wiesel’s Night? 2. How are the problems of faith, hope, and suffering revealed through the
character development of Eliezer?
C. Objectives of the Study
The first discussion will be going into a comprehensive understanding on the presentation of Elie Wiesel to the character development of Eliezer through
Night as his autobiography.
The achievement of Eliezer's character development leads into a bigger discussion on the problems of faith, hope, and suffering seen from the point of view of Eliezer, a young Jewish boy who witnessed his entire family embraced by the death of series concentration camps during the World War II.
D. Definition of Terms
To avoid a misleading and misunderstanding, I need to clarify some terms that will eventually be used in the present study. The first term is character which has many definitions; one of them used in literary discussion is referred from Abrams in A Glossary of Literary Terms, that is "the persons, in a dramatic or narrative work, endowed with moral and dispositional qualities that are expressed in what they say - the dialogue, and what they do - the action” (1981:20).
Dealing also with the development of a character, Perrine describes in
Literature: Structure, Sound and Sense, where all fictional characters could be
classified as static or dynamic. This dynamic character, whether over or underdeveloped, undergoes a permanent change in some aspects of his or her character, personality, or outlook. The change is perhaps small or big, better or worse, however it basically gives important contribution to the story (1974:71). Thus a character development, literally, means the changing of a character in thought, feeling, behavior, point of view, mental, or religious quality through some environments and a period of time.
The next terms are faith, hope, and suffering. I might refer to the very general definition of the terms, regardless of the religion in particular. Faith, from the lens of tradition of religion, is discussed as an unobservable and less variable quality of human beings; moreover it is an essential human quality (Wulff, 1997:4).
of their experience and existence within the world (Fromm, 1968:13).
CHAPTER II
THEORETICAL REVIEW
A. Review of Related Studies
The object of the present study is Night, the autobiography of Elie Wiesel which is published by Hill and Wang, a division of Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, Inc. in 2006. Based on the text, I discuss the problems of faith, hope, and suffering as seen in the character development of Eliezer, as the main character, at the hands of the Nazis and their concentration camps.
Studies on Wiesel's Night, mostly give focus on philosophy of religion, particularly on questioning the occurrence of suffering and evil. Gary E. Kessler in his Philosophy of Religion toward a Global Perspective raises evil as a problem for human existence where all human beings share the experiences of suffering and evil, in personal and cultural dimension, also in religious thought:
The broad problem of the 'why' of evil becomes the theological problem when a concept of God is brought into the picture. Why does God permit evil? Is the existence of evil compatible with the existence of God? How can it be that God loves us, and yet all these terrible things happen to us? (1999:211)
God who is perfectly good, all-powerful, and the all-knowing creator of this world. Whilst evidential argument from evil tries to demonstrate that the variety and amount of evil in the world constitute good evidence that such a God may well not exist (1999:211).
Other studies pay attention to theological issue that is the death of God. The death of God theology could be found at his autobiography, in Wiesel's exploration to his own experiences in the concentration camps when Wiesel had to see a young boy, the so-called pipel, a child with a refined and beautiful face, was hanged on the gallows, as follows:
Then came the march past the victims. The two men were no longer alive. Their tongues were hanging out, swollen and bluish. But the third rope was still moving: the child, too light, was still breathing ...
And so he remained for more than half an hour, lingering between life and death, writhing before our eyes. And we were forced to look at him at close range. He was still alive when I passed him. His tongue was still red, his eyes not yet extinguish.
Behind me, I heard the same man asking: "For God's sake, where is God?"
And from within me, I heard a voice answer:
"Where He is? This is where - hanging here from this gallows ..." That night, the soup tasted of corpses. (2006:65)
Related to the above quote, in A History of God, Karen Armstrong describes the death of God theology in chapter The Death of God, page 346-376, and as a closing to that chapter she interprets Wiesel's Night as a claim where "God who manifests himself in history, who, they say with Wiesel, died in Auschwitz." (1994:375-376).
pipel, Armstrong correlates the traditional idea of God with the proclamation of death of God by Friedrich Nietzsche:
For many Jews, the traditional idea of God would become impossibility after the Holocaust. The Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel had lived only for God during his childhood in Hungary; his life had been shaped by the disciplines of the Talmud, and he had hoped one day to be initiated into the mysteries of Kabbalah. As a boy, he was taken to Auschwitz and later to Buchenwald. During his first night in the death camp, watching the black smoke coiling to the sky from the crematorium where the bodies of his mother and sister were to be thrown, he knew that the flames had consumed his faith forever. He was in a world which was the objective correlative of the Godless world imagined by Nietzsche (1994:375).
Here Armstrong provokes the idea of the death of traditional and biblical God, obviously using the scene from Wiesel's Night. However, with the same scene, different from Armstrong, Hans Kung in Judaism tries to interpret Wiesel's Night instead of the proclamation of the death of God, but of humanity:
And despite the seductive voice in Elie Wiesel's famous Auschwitz story of the young boy on the gallows, it is not 'God' hanging there on the cross, but God's anointed, his 'Christ', the 'Son of Man'. In other words, the cross is not the symbol of the 'suffering', 'screaming' God, indeed 'the symbol of God suffering the distress of death', but the symbol of humanity suffering the distress of death (1995:601).
Night has also put Wiesel as a messenger of human kind, in a way that
people may not keep silent over the destruction of humanity. However, Wiesel has been critized for his comment and position upon the state of Israel and the Sabra and Shatila massacre. A journalist, Christopher Hitchens, with his essay entitled
Wiesel Words published on The Nation, February 19, 2001, pointed out Wiesel’s
Noam Chomsky, in his book Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel,
and the Palestinians, published in 1999, also noted Wiesel's moral response to the
Sabra and Shatila massacre with the following remarks:
Wiesel's position was that "I don't think we should even comment on [the massacre in the refugee camps] since the [Israeli judicial] investigation is still on." "We should not pass judgment until the investigation takes place." Nevertheless he did feel "sadness" for the first time, he explains; nothing that had happened before in the occupied territories or in Lebanon had evoked any sadness on his part, and now the sadness was "with Israel, and not against Israel" -surely not "with the Palestinians" who had been massacred or with the remnants who had escaped (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elie_Wiesel accessed on September 5, 2007).
What was stressed by the last two comments is the irony of Wiesel’s silence to inhumanity. Wiesel is known to be the messenger of human kind but he never sends any message to the Sabra and Shatila massacre. Trying not to blame the state of Israel, Wiesel chose to keep silent and never gave any comment against the massacre.
I am following Kung here, rather than Armstrong, since Eliezer, the main character, is indicated that he did not proclaim the death of God, nor decline the existence of God. It was the silence of God, also reflected as the silence of humanity, that bothered Eliezer during his days in the camps. Starting from this point, I trace the Eliezer’s character development during his days in the camps and than signify the findings toward the problems of his faith, hope, and suffering. Thus this study will focus on the Eliezer’s character development and his
B. Review of Related Theories
1. Theories of Character Development
The existence of characters is considered as important and significant in shaping and building a story, particularly in literary work. Characters contribute and take part in a story, as a matter of fact, where the author involves other elements into story, such as setting, plot, and sometimes theme. Thus during the process of reading, we are usually introduced to characters and the other elements of the story by the author (Little, 1963:1).
In A Glossary of Literary Terms, M.H. Abrams offers a definition of a
character obviously as a person, a human being with moral and dispositional qualities where both elements can be identified through what the character says (in dialogues) and does (in actions) in the story (1981:20). Here the author is able to arouse an independence from narration to the readers to identify, actively and freely, the presence of the characters through the dialogue and the action.
Character is mainly divided in two parts; the first is major character and second is minor character. The major character is the main character in the story, and it plays important and significant part in the story while minor character is a supporting character for the major character in the story.
E.M. Forster in Aspects of The Novel (1927), as quoted by Abrams, introduced another terms to differentiate characters, that is flat character and round character:
single phrase or sentence. A round character is complex in temperament and motivation and is represented with subtle particularity; thus he is difficult to describe with any adequacy as a person in real life, and like most people, he is capable if surprising us (1981:20-21).
From both terms, it could be concluded that the existence of the characters in the story is valued from the quality and capacity of the development. When a character is introduced from the start until the end of the story in a stable or unchanged nature, he is a flat character. Therefore, when a character performs changes in his nature, or has significant development in his nature in the story from the start until the end, the character is round. Abrams says that such character may undergo a radical change, either through a gradual development or as a result of an extreme crisis (1981:21).
Joseph F. Trimmer, in Writing with a Purpose, gives another term for such changes or development for a character as dynamic and static:
Central characters who change in some significant way as a result of the conflicts they must resolve, are often called dynamic. Characters who remain unchanged by the experiences they encounter, are called static (1992:335).
These terms are similar to Perrine in Literature: Structure, Sound and Sense, where all fictional characters could be classified as static or dynamic. This dynamic character, according to Perrine, whether over or underdeveloped, undergoes a permanent change in some aspects of his or her character, personality, or outlook. The change is perhaps small or big, better or worse, however it basically gives important contribution to the story (1974:71).
development is being used in this study. Based on what Perrine, Trimmer, and Abrams state previously, it could be indicated that character development means the changing of a character permanently and significantly in his/her personality or outlook, thought or feeling, behavior, point of view, mental, or religious quality, either through a gradual development or as a result of an extreme crisis.
Characterization is also an important part of the story that creates the existence of characters. Mary Rohberger and Samuel H. Wood, in Reading and
Writing About Literature, state that characterization is the way the author creates
characters in a story (1971:21). We can say that this is the process of the author to introduce the characters to the readers.
Related to characterization, Perrine suggests that the author could present his/her characters in two different ways directly and indirectly (1974:71). In direct presentation, the author tells us what a character is like, straight out by exposition or analysis. The author could use another characters to describe what he/she looks like. This method is clear and practical. The indirect presentation, shows us the character in action and dialogues where readers recognize the description of the character from his/her thought, dialogues, and or action.
convincing (1982:19). 2. Theories of Faith
In discourse concerning religion, faith has two rather different meanings. As a trusting and confident attitude toward God, faith (fiducia) may be compared with trust in one's fellow human beings. As a cognitive act or state whereby men are said to know God or to have knowledge about him, faith (fides) may be compared with our perceptual awareness of our material environment or our knowledge of the existence of other persons.
The meaning in fides is closely related to Erich Fromm's The Revolution of Hope. Fromm calls faith as the conviction about the not yet proven, the knowledge of the real possibility, the awareness of pregnancy (1968:14). It means that faith needs rationality when it refers to the knowledge and comprehension. However, faith is not a prediction of the future; it is the vision of the present in a state of pregnancy. The paradox of faith is that it is the certainty of the uncertain. But also faith is based on experience of living.
Following the book of Genesis 12-15, what is more fundamental for Abraham is trust in God. Faith, which is unconditional trust, is the fundamental feature. It is said that this faith is reckoned to Abraham for righteousness. Faith is understood as the acceptance of a given truth, as 'regarding as true' something which cannot be proven. Faith is unshakeable trust in a promise which cannot be realized by human beings; it is faithfulness, confidence, saying ‘Amen' (Kung, 1995:10).
a man who on the basis of this faith can withstand the greatest test of all: the sacrifice of his own son, which is asked of him, but in the end, is not willed by God (Kung, 1995:10). This is a traditional example of faith in Judaism as seen in the Jewish annals. Abraham both accepts statements from God that seem impossible and offers obedient actions in response to direction from God to do things that seem implausible (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith accessed on September 5, 2007).
Such description of faith above has brought in the discussion of rational and irrational faith. There is an important distinction between rational and irrational faith. While rational faith is the result of one's own inner activeness in thought or feeling, irrational faith is submission to something given, which one accepts as true regardless of whether it is or not. The essential element of all irrational faith is its passive character, be its object an idol, a leader, or an ideology.
Since this undergraduate thesis is working on issue of development, we need to comprehend also that there is a state of development in the terminology of faith. This suits with the work of Wulff in his In Psychology of Religion (1997), who borrows James Fowler's research in faith development.
that exert ordering force in our lives" (p.401) as the initial meaning of faith to reveal the stages, as follows:
1. Intuitive-Projective Faith
The intuitive-projective faith is a primal faith of infancy, which rests on a foundation of basic trust and mutuality. It is a joint product of the teaching and examples of significant adults, on the one hand, and the young child's reigning cognitive egocentrism and developing imaginative capacity on the other. This first stage possesses the emergent strength of imagination, the capacity to represent the world of experience in powerful and unifying images that also serve to orient the child toward ultimate reality. The danger here is of becoming overwhelmed by terrifying or destructive images, or of being exploited by images used to compel moral or doctrinal conformity (p.401).
2. Mythic-Literal Faith
3. Synthetic-Conventional Faith
The synthetic-conventional faith is marked by formal operational thinking, which is able to reflect back on itself, around the age of 12. The world of experience for the adolescent is much broader and more complex, placing new demands on the orienting function of faith. It is a conformist stage, Fowler observes, for the opinions and authority of significant others play a powerful role. The youth simply takes the reflection of beliefs and values that form the adolescent's ideology and the world they mediate for granted. The emergent capacity is a higher level of storytelling, for the shaping of personal myth that discerns new meaning in the stories from the young person's past while also projecting him or her into possible roles and relationships in the future. Potentially at risk in this stage is the later development of autonomy, if others' expectation and judgment are too thoroughly internalized and sacralized (p.402).
4. Individuative-Reflective Faith
world-view (p.402).
5. Conjunctive Faith
This stage is named conjunctive faith in recognition of the fact that a person faces the paradoxes and contradictions within the self and experience, also attains some measure of integration. The individual in this stage of faith is genuinely open to the truths of other communities and traditions, and at the same time humbly recognized that ultimate truth extends far beyond the reach of every tradition. According to Fowler, conjunctive faith combines loyalty to one's own primary communities of value and belief with loyalty to the reality of a community of communities. There is an ironic imagination, engaged by symbolic expressions while recognizing their relativity and inadequacy to reality. The danger is a sense of cosmic homelessness and loneliness (p.403).
6. Universalizing Faith
3. Theories of Hope
Hope is a belief in a positive outcome related to events an circumstances in one's life, that it is possible even when there is some evidence to the contrary (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hope accessed on September 5, 2007). The usage of the term hope may be distinguished following another terms. Hope as an emotion produces a motivation to act and this is similar to optimism where the only distinction is that hope is an emotional state, whereas optimism is a conclusion of thought pattern. In religion, hope is often the result of faith and hope is typically contrasted with despair.
In Greek mythology, hope was personified; however it was re-narrated in
Human, All Too Human by philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche in a distinctive and
contrary interpretation of hope:
Hope. Pandora brought the jar with the evils and opened it. It was the gods' gift to man, called the lucky jar. Then all the evils, those lively, winged beings, flew out of it. Since that time, they roamed around and do harm to men by day and night. One single evil had not yet slipped out of the jar. As Zeus had wished, Pandora slammed the top down and it remained inside. So now man has the lucky jar in his house forever and thinks the world of the treasure. It is at his service; he reaches for it when he fancies it. He does not know that that jar which Pandora brought was the jar of evils, and he takes the remaining evil for the greatest worldly good--it is hope, for Zeus did not want man to throw his life away, no matter how much the other evils might torment him, but rather to go on letting himself be tormented anew. To that end, he gives man hope. In truth, it is the most evil of evils because it prolongs man's torment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hope accessed on 5 September 2007).
better cars, houses, and gadgets would be people of hope, but they are not, they are people lusty for more consumption (1968:6).
Is it to hope if hope's object is not a thing but a fuller life, a state of greater aliveness, a liberation from eternal boredom; or to use a theological term, for salvation; or a political term, for revolution? Indeed this kind of expectation could be hope but it is non-hope if it has the quality of passiveness, and a "waiting for" (Fromm, 1968:6). This is what Fromm calls as a passive hope.
Frank Kafka, as quoted by Fromm, has described this passive hope in a story in The Trial where a man came to the door leading into heaven and begged admittance from the doorkeeper who did not give any admittance. Although the door widely opened, the man decided that he had better wait until he got the permission to enter. Waiting for days and years, he repeatedly asked to be allowed in but was always told that he could not be allowed to enter yet. Eventually he was old and near to death, and for the first time he asked the question, "How does it come about that in all these years no one has come seeking admittance but me?" and the doorkeeper answered "No one but you could gain admittance through this door, since this door was intended for you. I am now going to shut it" (Fromm, 1968:7).
Hope is a decisive element in any attempt to bring about social change in the direction of greater aliveness, awareness, and reason (Fromm, 1968:6). In other words hope must be active, not passive which is actually hopelessness. Hope is an intrinsic element of the structure of life. In hope, man has quality of spirit, efforts and goals. He deals also with feelings and awareness.
Hope is paradoxical; it is neither passive waiting nor unrealistic forcing of circumstances that cannot occur. To hope means to be ready at every moment for that which is not yet born, and yet not become desperate if there is no birth in our lifetime. This is when people must have a strong hope for seeing and experiencing all signs of new life and being ready at every moment to help the birth of a new life (Fromm, 1968:9).
Hope is passive in the sense of a wish or a prayer or active as a plan or idea, often against popular belief, with persistent, personal action to execute the plan or prove the idea. For instance, we can consider a prisoner of war who never gives up hope for escape and, against the odds, plans and accomplishes this. By contrast, another prisoner simply wishes or prays for freedom, or eventually gives up all hope of freedom (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hope accessed on September 5, 2007).
In fact, Fromm continues, the responses and reactions to the shattering of hope vary a great deal, depending on many circumstances: historical, personal, psychological, and constitutional. Many people, probably the majority, react to the disappointment of their hopes by adjustment to the average optimism which hopes for the best without bothering to recognize that not even the good but perhaps, indeed, the worst may occur (Fromm, 1968:21).
Another outcome of the shattering of hope is the "hardening of the heart" (Fromm, 1968:21). We see many people, not only "people" but the very people we trusted most (our parents, leaders, best friends), cannot stand to be hurt any more. Some of them decide that they have had enough; that they will not feel anything any more, that nobody will ever be able to hurt them, but that they will be able to hurt others.
Another and much more drastic result of shattering hope is "destructiveness and violence" (Fromm, 1968:22). Precisely because men cannot live without hope, the one whose hope has been utterly destroyed hates life. Since he cannot create life, he wants to destroy it, which is probably easier to accomplish.
4. Theories of Suffering
In daily life, there is sometimes a situation against of his or her will, an unpleasant experience, feeling of pain and unhappiness, becoming worse day by day. This situation is what people may call as suffering. As a matter of fact people cannot completely avoid suffering; some parts still experience suffering and just exist within it.
In religion, as John Bowker writes in his book Problems of Suffering in
Religions, suffering has a particular place of central importance or consideration,
and indeed, it is often said that suffering is an important cause of religion, since the promises held out by religion represent a away in which men can feel reassured in the face of suffering (1970:1).
Suffering, theoretically speaking, becomes a problem when it is related to other facts or other propositions which seem to be contradicted by it (Bowker, 1970:3). All religions take account of suffering; even some make it the basis of all they have to say. Thus, it is interesting to explore in what ways and for what reasons suffering became problematical in religion, and also to show what responses to suffering have been proposed.
suffering was to test his faithfulness. In the Epilogue, Job could only affirm, in the image of God's speaking to him out of the whirlwind, that God's plans are beyond man's knowing and that man could not condemn God in order to justify himself (Bowker, 1970:19).
This is well expressed by some believers in the words of a poignant Hasidic prayer, "God, do not tell me why I suffer, for I am no doubt unworthy to know why, but help me to believe that I suffer for Your sake" (Hertzberg, 1962:199).
Response from the book of Job usually expresses the simplest answer, that suffering is just a requital of wickedness (Bowker, 1970:11), punishment for sin (p.12), and simply a test of faith (p.15). This is a classic understanding of a cause-and-effect of suffering from the basis of a traditional or conventional idea of God. In Judaism, God and Israel as a covenant has their closest relationship in history as depicted in the Scripture, for instance in the Exodus.
However, the problem is not why suffering exists, but why it afflicts some people and not others. The problem is not the fact of suffering but its distribution (Bowker, 1970:9).
The development of understanding suffering in Judaism shows some findings significantly. First of all Israel gave an important contribution to human response to suffering, that suffering can be made redemptive, that it can become the foundation of better things, collectively, if not individually (Bowker, 1970:21). This view was coming from some efforts of the apocalyptic words from the prophets. The word is from the Greek apocalypsis, meaning an uncovering or revelation; apocalyptic reveals what will happen in the future, particularly at the end of days (p.14).
Second, life after death came to play a decisive important part in the Jewish response to suffering (Bowker, 1970:24). From the history, Jewish found some crucial development that suffering in certain circumstances can be sacrificial; that in the Maccabean revolt in the second century BCE, a large scale of Jews were martyred for their faith (p.26-28).
In the rabbinic period, the understanding of suffering was expressed in more specific ways, such as Rabbi Simeon b. Yohai, as quoted in Bowker's:
The Holy One, blessed be he, gave Israel three precious gifts, Torah, the land of Israel and the world to come, but none of them were given except through suffering (1970:34).
whole community of the faithful (p.37). Regardless of the political intrigue, the Jews eventually achieved their land of Israel after the suffering and persecution of Auschwitz-Buchenwald during the World War II; they established the State of Israel, what I personally call as their short term vision of atonement.
Rabbi Akiba's reflection is similar to Rabbi Harold S. Kushner in providing response to suffering. Rabbi Kushner wrote in his book When Bad
Things Happen To Good People, published in 1981; stated in his conclusion as
follows:
In the final analysis, the question of why bad things happen to good people translates itself into some very different questions, no longer asking why something happened, but asking how we will respond, what we intend to do now that it has happened (Beker, 1987:81).
Such understanding has brought us to discuss the meaning of suffering, whether the findings would be meaningful or meaningless. J. Christiaan Beker, in
Suffering and Hope describes the interrelation between suffering, hope and faith
that "when hope vanishes, faith has no ground and the intensity of suffering increases" (1987:14). Beker says that suffering should have purpose (p.17) since such form of suffering stimulates hope to appear (p.19) since meaningless suffering evaporates hope (p.20).
C. Theoretical Framework
This chapter comprises the applied theories to present the character development of Eliezer in Elie Wiesel's Night. Theories of character and character development are used to clarify Eliezer's character development. Findings on the character development will be used particularly to respectively reveal the problems of faith, hope, and suffering of Eliezer during his days in his small town until in the concentration camps.
CHAPTER III
METHODOLOGY
A. Object of the Study
For the present study, I use Night, an autobiography written by Elie Wiesel, a Romanian born Jewish-American writer who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. Night is the very first of Wiesel's work, particularly on autobiographical text. Night speaks for Wiesel and his family, and at the same time also speaks for all Jews who knew about life and death in the Nazi concentration camps, the so-called Holocaust.
Through Night Wiesel recorded his detail experiences on the death of his mother, his younger sister, and his father, also his friends, moreover the death of his innocence as a young Jewish boy, and the death of his God. It is said "one of the most powerful literary expression of the Holocaust" (Merriam-Webster, 1995:1200).
Night was first written in Yiddish, Un di velt hot gesvign (1956; And the
World Remained Silent), then abridged in French edition as La Nuit (1958; Night),
published by Les Editions de Minuit. In English version, the book is known as
Night, an autobiographical account of Elie Wiesel as a young Jewish boy during
his time at concentration camp of Auschwitz and Buchenwald.
rendering in English of Elie Wiesel's autobiography. The second translation was published in 2006 by Hill and Wang, a division of Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, Inc. According to Hill and Wang, the new version "presents this seminal work in the language and spirit truest to the author's original intent" (http://www.fsgbooks.com/index.php accessed on July 14, 2007).
The first translation into English was done by Stella Rodway, which at that time the copyright was held by MacBibbon & Kee (1960), and then renewed by The Collins Publishing Group (1988).
Elie, in full Eliezer, Wiesel was born in September, 30, 1928, Sighet Romania. Wiesel is now known as American writer and educator, widely regarded as the spokesman for the victims and survivors of the Nazi and Holocaust during World War II. Most of his fiction, essays, and commentaries are informed by his mission to bear witness to the starkest event in human history. In recognition of his efforts as "a messenger to mankind" he was awarded the Nobel Peace Price in 1986.
While living in France, Wiesel was urged by the novelist Francois Mauriac to bear witness to what he had experienced in the concentration camps. Then the outcome was Wiesel's first book, his only work in Yiddish, Un di velt hot gesvign (1956), abridged in French as La Nuit (1958).
All of Wiesel's works concern, in some manner, his wartime experiences and his reflections on their broader significance. They include Dawn (1961), The
Accident (1962), La Ville de la chance (1962; The Town Beyond the Wall), The
Gates of the Forest (1967), Jews of Silence (1967), Le Mendiant de Jerusalem
(1968; A Beggar in Jerusalem), Zalmen, or The Madness of God (1968), Legends
of Our Times (1968), Celebration hasidique (1972; Souls on Fire), Le Testament
d'un poete juif assassine (1980; The Testament), Le Cinquieme fils (1983; The
Fifth Son), Le Crepuscule, au loin (1987; Twilight), and L'Oublie (1989; The
Forgotten).
Night tells the story of Jews who were deported to concentration camps
during World War II. Eliezer (Elie Wiesel) is among the many young Jewish boys who are deported to Auschwitz, then to Buchenwald in Germany. Throughout the story, Eliezer remains with his father, where they must continuously fight, both emotionally and physically, along with other Jews in order remain alive.
and later a feeling of having been abandoned by God.
Although his father parishes, Eliezer ultimately survives his harsh imprisonment and has managed to stay alive by the time camp is liberated by American and Russian troops.
B. Approach of the Study
To do the analysis toward the problems formulated in the first chapter, I apply formalistic and philosophical approach in order to get a comprehensive result of the study of Elie Wiesel's Night. Using formalistic approach, the analysis on the character development of Eliezer is done by finding tracks and evidences of Eliezer's character and its development using only the text of the autobiography.
I use philosophical approach to interfere the second part that is the problems of faith, hope, and suffering. Using this approach, problems of faith and hope shaped since Eliezer’s early teenage period, could be identified in its close relation to the suffering of human kind, again from that young Jewish boy’s point of view.
C. Method of the Study
Internet, as a world wide cyber library, to collect information of similar studies or comments on the text in order to make state of mind that the present study has not been conducted in any part of the literary study.
The most important sources in this study is Night written by Elie Wiesel, published in 2006 by Hill and Wang, a division of Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, Inc. The text is used to find evidence and to correlate the findings with the theories used, based on the problem formulation proposed in the first chapter. On faith, I consult David M. Wulff’s Psychology of Religion, and still in the environment of psychology, Erich Fromm’s Revolution of Hope contributes best in shaping the concept of hope and John Bowker’s Problems of Suffering in
Religions of the World explains suffering in most religions of the world.
Answering the first problem I was equipped with theories of character and character development where Eliezer showed his development during the years of concentration camps. These theories performed the main character and displayed how the main character was developed significantly.
CHAPTER IV
ANALYSIS
Elie Wiesel's Night (2006) is a short autobiography since this account covers only 115 pages and is divided into nine parts without any specific number as the chapter mark. The content is particularly covering only five years of Elie Wiesel's life, from 1941 until 1945. Using World War II as its historical background, this autobiography is phenomenal in raising questions about God, religion, as well as humanity.
The main objectives of the present study I intend to perform here are to identify the character development of Eliezer and then to reveal the problems of faith, hope, and suffering as seen in character development of Eliezer.
I will discuss the main character development by following the general arrangement of the story to describe the main character that is Eliezer. This would be done by using also some notes to the minor characters and their development to sharpen the analysis on Eliezer's character development.
The findings of the first problem will be applied to the second analysis since the second problem will be discussing about the main character's concepts to faith, hope, and suffering. This is interesting because these concepts are growing up in such particular age and environment; furthermore in an extreme condition and situation, for instance concentration camps during the World War II.
trying to make any studies on Night to find any significant relation between Eliezer's character development to his concept to faith, hope and suffering. Therefore, this undergraduate thesis is a humble effort to raise questions about them and set up possible and rationale answers to them.
A. Eliezer's Character Development
Eliezer is the character that Wiesel used to express his motivation, thought, and feeling, also decision in the autobiography. This character is presented as the center of the whole story and showed to experience several personal crises during his life in the World War II, particularly in the Nazi Germany concentration camps. At these crises Eliezer is eventually placed to undergo a radical change in character, personality, and outlook.
Not only with the Talmud, as his spirit to study Judaism getting higher, he wants to learn Kabbalah, the secrets of Jewish mysticism. This teenager wants to enter the field of study at which is usually being studied by adult Jews at the age of thirty (2006:4); some say at forty. Perhaps, Eliezer attempts to enter the field of study because an intimate understanding and mastery of the Kabbalah will bring himself spiritually closer to God and enriches his experience of Jewish sacred texts and law.
Upon his father's disagreement to study Kabbalah earlier, optimism arises within Eliezer when he meets with Moishe the Beadle who agrees to guide him to study Kabbalah. Moishe the Beadle is the jack-of-all-trades (2006:3) in a Hasidic house of prayer. He is poor but his presence bothers no one in town, as if he is invisible, insignificant. Although he is not talkative, he speaks a lot to Eliezer about Kabbalah, its revelation and mysteries, every evening in the synagogue. Using the book of Zohar, one of the work in Kabbalah which contains mystical discussion of the nature of God, the origin and structure of the universe, the nature of souls, sin, redemption, good and evil, and related topics, Moishe the Beadle shares Kabbalah to Eliezer every evening in the synagogue. It has become an obsession for Eliezer that Moishe the Beadle will help him enter the secrets of Jewish mysticism (2006:5).
speaks of his tragic experiences that during the deportation he saw Jewish extermination, a mass killing by the Gestapo. He says that he was saved miraculously and returns to Sighet only to warn the Jews of Sighet to avoid such extermination. But no one believes, including Eliezer.
Without any guidance, Eliezer continues his study of Talmud and Kabbalah (2006:8). Eliezer does not see any reason to stop studying Judaism and to turn his devotion to the war. He keeps on his own path of Talmud and Kabbalah because he understands that his father and the rest of the family wish him to be Kabbalist, a master in Kabbalah for the Jews of Sighet (2006:4).
This is actually a dangerous decision for Eliezer since Kabbalah and Zohar are believed to be too powerful for those less emotionally mature and experienced. If one is not ready for what he finds in the secrets of Jewish mysticism, he could leave his faith in God behind and go insane. Eliezer seems to be devoting his life to God through Talmud and Kabbalah.
Not for long, the ghetto is liquidated entirely and the Jews of Sighet have to deal with deportation. Therefore, Eliezer looses his opportunity in learning Talmud and Kabbalah. As if saying goodbye, Eliezer looks at his house "in which I had spent years seeking my God, fasting to hasten the coming of the Messiah, imagining what my life would be like later" (2006:19). This is significantly the closing gate for Eliezer in studying Talmud and Kabbalah theoretically since the next days to come will be the moment of understanding God in reality of suffering, instead of God in the pages of Talmud and Kabbalah.
The Jews of Sighet are deported using train of cattle cars and after several days of travel, the train stops at Birkenau. In Birkenau, on the very first night, Eliezer is separated from his mother and his little sister, Tzipora forever:
Yet that was the moment when I left my mother ... In a fraction of a second I could see my mother, my sisters, move to the right. Tzipora was holding Mother's hand. I saw them walking farther and farther away; Mother was stroking my sister's blond hair, as if to protect her. And I walked on with my father, with the men. I didn't know that this was the moment in time and the place where I was leaving my mother and Tzipora forever. I kept walking, my father holding my hand (2006:29).
Later Eliezer learns that his mother and Tzipora was sent into the crematorium that very night, but he never knows whether they were dead by the crematorium or in the crematorium for a slow death in the middle of huge flame where human bodies turned into ashes. Moreover he also learns that the authorities, the SS officers of the Nazi in Germany, do not need any children or old people:
hold: small children. Babies! Yes, I did see this, with my own eyes ... children thrown into the flames (2006:32).
Eliezer does not believe what he has seen. His mind is now full of terror that he and his father would also be thrown into the crematorium. Even he hears his father whispering Kaddish for his father own self: "Yisgadal, veyiskadash,
shmey raba ... May His name be celebrated and sanctified ..." (2006:33).
In Jewish rituals, Kaddish is recited in daily ritual of the synagogue and by mourners at public services after the death of a close relative. The central theme of this prayer is the magnification and sanctification of God's name. However, at that moment, Eliezer hears the Jews around him, instead of for the dead, reciting Kaddish for themselves.
Having his own father reciting Kaddish, comes the moment when Eliezer makes his turning point in dealing with God's silence. He thinks he has given more than enough patience toward God's silence upon the death of his mother and his little sister, the death of those babies, the death of Jewish children and old people, and the upcoming death of his father and himself. Eliezer runs out of logical arguments and religious reasoning for such inhumanity and God's silence, therefore, he becomes angry and refuses to sanctify God's name:
Even that night Eliezer and his father escape from death, he has already experienced a tragedy that turns his life, his faith, his hope upside down:
... Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever ... Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes (2006:34).
Having experienced such extreme tragedy, there undergoes a radical change for Eliezer showing that just in one night, the first night in the Birkenau concentration camp, he has lost everything, his mother, his little sister Tzipora, and what he previously believes in Sighet. He has lost his faith and hope in God. He has become a different person. He is no longer the student of Talmud:
The night had passed completely. The morning star shone in the sky. I too had become a different person. The student of Talmud, the child I was, had been consumed by the flames. All that was left was a shape that resembled me. My soul had been invaded - and devoured - by a black flame (2006:37).
Thus, this situation suits with the theory of character development where Eliezer obviously undergoes a radical change from being hungry and thirsty of God into refusal and denial of God, which comes from his own disability to seek and find any divine reasoning for those inhuman tragedies. Instead of depending on God, Eliezer chooses to depend on his own power to live and survive in the concentration camps.
Besides his problem with God's silence, Eliezer is eventually dealing with problem of staying alive, for his own self and his father's. This is a difficulty for Eliezer because his father is getting weaker during the days in the concentration camps. Back in Sighet, his father never does any hard works besides Jewish organization and community. In the concentration camps, his father must work very hard every day with fewer rations of soup and bread. Therefore, Eliezer understands that he cannot count on his father for their safety but his father will count on him instead. As a son Eliezer protects his weak and old father.
Eliezer and his father then work in a warehouse of electrical materials. It seems to be a safe place for Eliezer and his father, and the other inmates could not agree more. The only danger in that warehouse is Idek, the Kapo, the head of the workplace, who occasionally has fits of madness. Idek could suddenly beat anyone near him without any reason; and Eliezer once receives Idek's fury. Eliezer is beaten so hard on the chest, head, all over his body. Unfortunately, another time, his father is also beaten by Idek with an iron bar. Eliezer sees everything, from the beginning to the end in silence:
I had watched it all happening without moving. I kept silent. In fact, I thought of stealing away in order not to suffer the blows. What's more, if I felt anger at that moment, it was not directed at the Kapo but at my father. Why couldn't he have avoided Idek's wrath? That was what life in a concentration camp had made of me ... (2006:54).
There is something beyond Eliezer's power, selection in the camp. The SS officers select prisoners who are weak and useless for the crematorium. Only the strong ones will stay in the camp. It is only a miracle for Eliezer to have his father passed. Eliezer cannot bribe the officers to let his father go from the selection; there is no chance to bribe and he has nothing to offer. Eventually on that selection, his father is able to prove his usefulness. It is really a miracle for Eliezer.
Worse days to come. The winter has arrived for Buna concentration camp. In such weather, Eliezer's right foot begins to swell from the cold, and the doctor, fortunately a great Jewish doctor, has decided that the leg will have to be operated, and the operation goes very well. However, rumors spreading inside the concentration camp that the Red Army, the Russian Army is racing toward Buna for liberation. The German Army decides to do evacuation, moving all the prisoners and inmates to another place, a deeper German territory. Eliezer and his father join the evacuation.
It is snowing with icy wind when Eliezer and his father are marching out from Buna with the other inmates. Later on the marching turns out to be a running. Many people die on this pace because the SS shoots them at their fatigue or else because they fall down and certainly are trampled under the feet of the thousands of men behind. Eliezer is tortured of his foot ache. He begins to lose his strength to live until he sees his father:
Eliezer has made his decision to take the responsibility of both safety. The only thing that he could do now is fighting for his father. To stay alive. Exhausted, the SS manages to make a stop in an abandoned village. Eliezer and his father can take some breath for a while, when Eliezer meets with Rabbi Eliahu who is searching his son whom he lost during the pace. First Eliezer thinks that they were accidentally separated, but then he remembers that actually the son "had seen him losing ground, letting the distance between them become greater" (2006:91).
A terrible thought crosses Eliezer's mind that probably the son "had wanted to be rid of his father", that the son "had felt his father growing weaker", that the son "had thought by this separation to free himself of a burden that could diminish his own chance for survival" (2006:91). Then Eliezer quickly prays to God in whom he no longer believes: "Oh God, Master of the Universe, give me the strength never to do what Rabbi Eliahu's son has done." (2006:91). He loves his father still and it holds the will to survive within himself.
The next stop is at Gleiwitz concentration camp. Even they only stay for three days, there is also selection. The weak goes to the left, the strong to the right. Eliezer's father was moved to the left, selected for extermination:
My father was sent to the left. I ran after him. An SS officer shouted at my back:
"Come back!"
Eliezer succeeds to save his father from the selection. Also on the train to Buchenwald, when the SS orders to throw out the dead from the wagon, Eliezer saves his father once again. His father seems to be dead, but Eliezer makes his father's eyes open avoiding death. At their departure, it was one hundred passengers on each wagon from Gleiwitz. Arriving at Buchenwald, only twelve people eventually leave the wagon.
In Buchenwald, Eliezer faces some bothering thoughts that is to take care of his own, not to be engaged in his father any longer. As a matter of fact, Eliezer's father is getting weaker and weaker. No strength to do anything but lie down in the barrack, "prostate on his cot" (2006:108). Moreover his father suffers from dysentery, and "saliva mixed with blood was trickling from his lips" (2006:108). But the doctor refuses to treat and give him any medication.
When Eliezer was accidentally separated from his father, he thought of leaving his father behind by not finding him:
If only I didn't find him! If only I were relieved of this responsibility, I could use all my strength to fight for my own survival, to take care only of myself (2006:106).
A week later, a Blockalteste, person in charge of the block, speaks to Eliezer about his father:
"Listen to me, kid. Don't forget that you are in a concentration camp. In this place, it is every man for himself, and you cannot think of others. Not even your father. In this place, there is no such thing as father, brother, friend. Each of us lives and dies alone. Let me give you good advice: stop giving your ration of bread and soup to your old father. You cannot help him anymore. And you are hurting yourself. In fact, you should be getting his rations ..." (2006:110-111).
At this point Eliezer is suggested to abandon his father, to leave him die. Perhaps this is the logic: you should let your father die to make your very own self live! Eliezer thinks that the man is right. It is "too late to save your old father" (2006:111) and it is an opportunity to get double rations of bread and soup; his own and his father's. The moment really breaks his morale down. He does not struggle for his own father anymore. Apparently it happens in a quick moment when an officer passes the block and hears Eliezer's father's pleading for mercy to Eliezer. The officer tells his father to be quiet and then violently gives him a hard blow to the head. Eliezer, who actually lies down on the upper bunk, does not move to cover his sick father. He is afraid of another blow that probably he himself will receive to his own head.
deep inside him, Eliezer "might have found something like: Free at last!" (2006:112). There is no burden anymore; just like a weight has been lifted from shoulder. After his father's death, nothing matters to Eliezer. He lives only with one desire: to eat. He spends the rest of the days in Buchenwald with idleness and dreams of soup, an extra ration of soup.
When Buchenwald concentration camp is finally liberated on April 1945, Eliezer survives at the end of the war. But three days after the liberation, he becomes ill and has to be taken care in hospital. There Eliezer has a chance to look at himself in the mirror. He has not seen himself since the ghetto: “From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me. The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me” (2006:115).
B. Problems of Faith, Hope, and Suffering as seen in Eliezer's Character
Development
1. Problems of Faith
The problem of faith occurs within Eliezer as a personal crisis when he eventually questions paradoxes and contradictions between tradition-religion and reality. The silence of God, according to Eliezer, lets tragedies of humanity come down among the Jews in the concentration camps. Eliezer eventually puts aside his taken-for-granted faith in God as a form of human independency and turns to offensively rebel against God.
I am following Erich Fromm and Hans Kung in the discourse of defining faith. Fromm says that faith is the conviction of the not-yet-proven, and Kung defines faith as an unconditional trust in a promise which cannot be realized by human beings. However, since this chapter comprises faith development, I should also mention James Fowler's definition of faith that is our way of discerning and committing ourselves to centers of values and power that exert ordering force in our lives. The last definition shows that someone has the capability and opportunity to develop him of herself in faith.
young person's past while also projecting him or her into possible roles and relationships in the future" (1997:402). There is also a situation where Eliezer "simply takes them (beliefs and values) and the world they mediate for granted" (1997:402).
This stage suits with the description of Eliezer's faith in the early school age. Eliezer has been defining his stage in the beginning of the autobiography:
I met him in 1941. I was almost thirteen and deeply observant. By day I studied Talmud and by night I would run to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the Temple (Wiesel, 2006:3).
His faith in God may be viewed as almost naïve, as he is among those who optimistically do not believe that God would allow anything bad to happen to them. In this stage, Eliezer is enhancing and enriching himself with the Talmud, a written record of an oral tradition and scholarship from rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, customs, and history. Eliezer is internalizing all available knowledge of Talmud at teenage period. Eliezer is also attempted to study Kabbalah, the secrets of Jewish mysticism. He wants to learn Kabbalah because an intimate understanding and mastery of the Kabbalah will bring himself spiritually closer to God and enriches his experience of Jewish sacred texts and law.
Realizing that studying Judaism is the only task he should do as the only son in the family, and there is no master of Kabbalah in Sighet, as his father always says, therefore Eliezer is in a situation of projecting himself into his roles and relationships in the future, to become a Kabbalist for the Jews of Sighet.
understand that actually he is still taking beliefs and values in Judaism and the mediating world for granted. This appears in Eliezer's early conversation with Moishe the Beadle in the synagogue:
"Why do you cry when you pray?" he asked, as though he knew me well.
"I don't know," I answered, troubled.
I had never asked myself that question. I cried because ... because something inside me felt the need to cry. That was all I knew.
"Why do you pray?" he asked after a moment.
Why did I pray? Strange question. Why did I live? Why did I breathe?
"I don't know," I told him, even more troubled and ill at ease. "I don't know." (2006:4).
Weeping over the destruction of the Temple is a tradition in Judaism. For hundreds of years the Jewish people have been doing it as a significant part of their religion. For Eliezer, there is no need to question such tradition; moreover there is absolutely no idea of questioning. Whereas Eliezer could not give any answers to Moishe the Beadle on the reasoning of crying, weeping whilst praying. Thus with Moishe the Beadle, Eliezer has entered the next stage in faith development that is Individuative-Reflective Faith. Relativism becomes the atmosphere in entering this stage which provides a couple of aspects as the important marks; they are firstly realizing the relativity of a person's inherited world-view, and secondly abandoning reliance on external authority (Wulff, 1997:402).
