Essay Options
Choose One
One. Using the Toulmin model, write an essay that supports, refutes, or complicates the assertion that the evil witnessed in Elie Wiesel's Night eradicates the philosophical notion of theodicy (the reconciliation of an all-loving, all-powerful God to the existence of evil).
For an argumentative paper such as this one, refer to the Chapters on writing arguments in How to Write Anything, pages 66-95.
Two. Using the Toulmin model, write an essay that supports, refutes, or complicates the assertion that the evil witnessed in Night bears moral witness to the truth and points to "freedom from the prison" and this moral agency gives Night its redeeming value.
In other words, we must have accounts that bear witness to evil in order that we don't make the error of denying evil and history and to insure accountability for those responsible. Otherwise, we will rewrite history and these revisionists histories are false.
Some however would argue that the evil evident in the book serves no purpose other than for us to embrace a nihilistic worldview; therefore, they would argue, the book has no redeeming value.
In the above essay prompt, you would be well served to evaluate the book's redeeming value by looking at its value in terms of using a criteria. We see how to apply a criteria or standard on pages 112-114 in How to Write Anything.
Here's a sample criteria or standard I would apply to the above essay prompt:
1. Is the book true?
2. Is the book moral?
3. Does the book contain a moral lesson we can use to better our lives?
4. Does the book connect with a wide audience by appealing to universal concerns?
Three. Related to the above essay prompt, some might argue that the fate of the people in Elie's town was that they suffered from a "failure of imagination." Or more specifically when presented with the evil of the Nazis, they could not believe or comprehend such evil. Therefore, they could not prepare for it.
In this context, write a cause and effect analysis of the way we tend to deny evil and how this capacity for denial results in our destruction. You might compare the evil rendered in Night with the denial that preceded the 9/11 attacks. Or you could use another example.
Four. In the context of Night, develop an argumentative thesis that addresses the question if Hitler and his minions were crazy sociopaths or sane evil, manipulating agents. Or both. Explain.
It might help for you recognize that a sociopath is not delusional but does evil without any pangs of conscience while a psychopath is delusional. Must a person be one or the other? Can a person be both?
Five. Write a literary analysis of Night by showing how the book uses literary motifs (night or darkness, fire as hell, fear, and corpses as the walking dead) to develop the narrative structure. For help with this prompt, you might refer to the chapter on literary analysis in How to Write Anything on pages 184-212.
Your guidelines for your essay are as follows:
This research paper should present a thesis that is specific, manageable, provable, and contestable—in other words, the thesis should offer a clear position, stand, or opinion that will be proven with research.
You should analyze and prove your thesis using examples and quotes from a variety of sources.
You need to research and cite from at least five sources. You must use at least 3 different types of sources.
At least one source must be from an ECC library database.
At least one source must be a book, anthology or textbook.
At least one source must be from a credible website, appropriate for academic use.
The paper should not over-rely on one main source for most of the information. Rather, it should use multiple sources and synthesize the information found in them.
This paper will be approximately 1,000 words in length (about 4 typed, double-spaced pages), not including the Works Cited page, which is also required. The Works Cited page does NOT count towards length requirement.
You must use MLA format for the document, in-text citations, and Works Cited page.
You must integrate quotations and paraphrases using signal phrases and analysis or commentary.
You must sustain your argument, use transitions effectively, and use correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
Your paper must be logically organized and focused.
Theme in Night: Denial and Acclimation to Evil
1. Denial and acclimation to evil; as we get comfortable with a certain level of evil, it creeps toward us in greater and greater amounts slowly robbing us of our freedom.
This process creates the term "evil creep"; we acclimate to evil as it rises (creeping) slowly and slowly until it's too late; humans tend toward denial because reality is too inconvenient to deal with.
Here are examples of denials that "speak" inside people's heads:
I don't need to work on my relationship even though my girlfriend and I barely speak anymore. That's normal.
I don't need a colonoscopy even though there's a family history of colon cancer. I'll accept fate for what it is.
I'm not fat. I've got reserves in case I get sick in the hospital. See the 1,200-pound man on Oprah.
I don't have a spending problem. I need my new car and iPhone payments; otherwise, I won't be able to find a girlfriend.
I study too hard. I need more balance in my life. I need to go out and play more often.
I know my husband beats me once a week, but at least he doesn't beat me every day like some women I know.
Silence and Indifference Empower Evil
Danger of silence; silence makes us complicit in evil; we tend to keep our mouth shut because we fear we'll get into trouble or people will say we're crazy for speaking out or both.
Another danger of silence and apathy is "Evil Creep."We see this evil creep when Moshe the Beadle tries to warn his friends of the coming evil but he's dismissed as a madman.
What is it about the human tendency toward denial and acclimation to evil, AKA "Evil Creep"?
The short answer is that we don't want to be inconvenienced by the truth. We love our delusions too much and often at our own peril.
Silence as a theological event in an article by Naomi Seidman. God must now be questioned in the face of the Holocaust in new ways. And in doing so, we don't necessarily lose our faith; we reconstruct it in light of the Holocaust.
Theodicy:
The problem of reconciling evil to an all-powerful, all-loving God. There are many parallels to Job, which is a book that struggles with theodicy.
Theodicy asks:
How can God stand silent in the face of evil?
How do we say God is all-powerful and all-loving when time and time again he does not intervene in horrific acts of cruelty from man or nature against man?
Every few seconds a child somewhere in the world dies of starvation and God does nothing. During the Holocaust live babies were thrown into flickering ovens and God did nothing. As you can see, theodicy is a very emotional subject.
What is the struggle between nihilism and meaning, faith and theodicy?
An essay that addresses theodicy could be divided into two parts: How theodicy fails in the context of the book, but how we cannot look at failed theodicy as a justification for hedonism and nihilism in the context of Night.
Even if we can no longer believe in an all-powerful God, we have to ask ourselves what is the option to losing belief? Is it nihilism (nothing matters), hedonism (the relentless pursuit of pleasure because it's seen as the highest good)?
Enduring suffering is comparable to Job; how do we react to the suffering; do we become bitter and imitate our oppressors or do we find purpose from our suffering? This theme is rendered with brilliance in an Anthony Payne film starring George Clooney called The Descendants.
Memory
An important theme in Night is remembering what happened and keeping vigilant; we must take responsibility for our apathy and indifference to what happened in the past or the past will repeat itself.
Those who write history, those who portray the mainstream version of history to others, are the ones who have the power.
For example, some people honor the "history" that champions the values of the Confederate Flag; others have contempt for the Confederate history because the "values" embody the diseased religion of White Supremacy, a time of aggrandizing one race and exploiting another.
Which "history" we believe in affects our values and the leaders we choose to champion our values.
There are many "histories" but some versions are more credible than others.
Dehumanization and scapegoating throughout history.
Since the Inquisition, those in power gain more power by demonizing the helpless or some bogus "enemy." Demonizing and scapegoating the innocent has been an evil tool to gain power used since the beginning of time.
There is also self-imposed dehumanization: What is the dehumanization process? The loss of will: From the Japanese series Fist of the North Star: "A man who gives up the will is not a human being anymore." Wiesel saw many in the camps who lost their will long before they physically died.
Loss of innocence:
You lose your faith in the world as you once knew it. God will not or cannot protect you from evil. Nor can your parents. Before his experience in the concentration camp, Elie assumed these two propositions were true.
You lose your orientation to the world as you once knew it. The boundaries of common decency that keep evil in check do not exist.
You lose the image of yourself you once valued. You no longer believe in the common decency of humanity and recognizing the human capacity for evil you change so radically that you can not even recognize your old self.
You are overcome with the fear that God does not exist and fear that without a god anything--no matter how vile--is permissible. "If God doesn't exist, then everything is permitted," is taken from the Brothers Karmazov by Dostoyevsky.
Are People Evil Or Crazy Or Both?
Is there real evil in the world or are people crazy and as a result are misguided in their beliefs such as the belief that the world would be a better place if we exterminated the Jews?
Can evil be explained by science and sociology or is it part of a more inexplicable, spiritual realm? Consult Explaining Hitler by Ron Rosenbaum.
How do civilized, decent people become complicit with evil and engage in blind obedience?
Major Theme from First 3 Chapters: Denial and Acclimation to Evil (pertains to prompts 2 and 3)
As Elie Wiesel, just a 12-year-old boy, gets off the train and watches babies and others thrown alive into furnaces of fire, he is overcome with the question:
How could this be happening and how could the whole world be silent in the face of this evil?
In fact, genocide, the killing of masses of people based on their religion or ethnicity, had happened before in history. Just about 30 years earlier, the world was silent when from 1915-1923, the Turks killed 1.5 to 2 million Armenians, a fact that the Turkish government still denies today.
Hitler said he was emboldened by the world's indifference of the Armenian genocide to commit the same atrocity against the Jews.
So the question remains, why is the human beast prone to denial of evil even in the face of overwhelming evidence that evil is coming right at us?
Why Do We Deny Evil?
1. Laziness is partly true, but it's an oversimplification. We are addicted to our routines and we don't want to change. We are hard-wired to inertia. So when the Jews in Elie's village hear about the Nazis rounding up their people and all the other bad things, the townspeople don't want to be disturbed.
2. Often evil is beyond the imagination of the innocent and the good. In other words, good people cannot believe or even comprehend that the kind of evil described in Night could exist.
Some have said, that we weren't prepared for 9/11 in spite of evidence that it was going to happen because of a failure of the imagination.
3. We often don't trust the messenger, especially when we don't like the message. For example, the beloved Moshe the Beadle is taken away as a "foreigner" and survives a slaughter and comes back to town to warn his friends, but people dismiss him as a madman.
Study the Templates of Argumentation
While the author’s arguments for meaning are convincing, she fails to consider . . .
While the authors' supports make convincing arguments, they must also consider . . .
These arguments, rather than being convincing, instead prove . . .
While these authors agree with Writer A on point X, in my opinion . . .
Although it is often true that . . .
While I concede that my opponents make a compelling case for point X, their main argument collapses underneath a barrage of . . .
While I see many good points in my opponent’s essay, I am underwhelmed by his . . .
While my opponent makes some cogent points regarding A, B, and C, his overall argument fails to convince when we consider X, Y, and Z.
My opponent makes many provocative and intriguing points. However, his arguments must be dismissed as fallacious when we take into account W, X, Y, and Z.
While the author’s points first appear glib and fatuous, a closer look at his polemic reveals a convincing argument that . . .
Qualities of an Effective Thesis
A good thesis is a complete sentence that defines your argument.
A good thesis addresses your opponents’ views in a concession clause.
A good thesis often has mapping components or mapping statements that outline your body paragraphs.
A good thesis avoids the obvious and instead struggles to grapple with difficult and complex ideas.
A good thesis embraces complexity and sophistication but is expressed with clarity.
A good thesis is a demonstrable opinion or argument about a topic; it is not a statement of fact.
Sample Thesis Statements: Evaluate How Effective the Following Theses Are and Explain
Night is about the loss of innocence.
Night is about dehumanization.
Night helps us realize how important it is to remember the Holocaust.
Night makes us focus on the the problems of faith in the context of theodicy.
Night is a warning about being silent in the face of evil.
Night is about the dangers of acclimating to evil.
Improved Thesis Statements
Night delves into the darkness of the human heart but in the end is a life-affirming memoir because it __________, _________, ___________, and ______________.
While Elie Wiesel struggles with nihilism and the ultimate rejection of God, his book struggles to achieve, successfully, a moral force for good. This goodness is born from the book's warning that we must never forget the evil of the Holocaust; that we must condemn the oppressors and the indifferent alike; that we must be warned of the dangers of acclimating to evil; that we must be warned of the dangers of cowardice and that dehumanization that results.
Elie Wiesel's struggle to recover his faith in both God and humanity and God has many parallels with Job, which affirms a Moral Code in the face of nihilism. These parallels include _________________, ______________, ____________________, and _____________________.
While McMahon tries to salvage some meaning and goodness from Night, I'm sorry to say that this masterful memoir provides us with overwhelming evidence for converting to atheism and nihilism. The most compelling reasons for rejecting God and meaning as a farce are contained in this gem of a book and these compelling reasons include ____________________, _________________, __________________, and ___________________.
The above writer's contention that we should reject God and become nihilists performs a mockery of Elie Wiesel's masterpiece. In truth, the problem of nihilism is a very tempting one for Wiesel, but we see that he rejects nihilism in favor of a strong moral code evidenced by __________________, ___________________, ___________________, and ___________________.
Hitler and his Nazi minions cannot be called crazy because such a label absolves them of their guilt. In fact, a close examination of Hitler and his close assistants give us a remarkable window into pure evil evidenced by ___________, ____________, _____________, and _______________.
Night is compelling evidence that theodicy, the attempt to reconcile an all loving, all powerful God with the world's evil, is a flimsy philosophy that cannot support any meaningful belief in God. In fact, a close look at Night is a refutation of theodicy evidenced by ____________, ____________, _____________, and ________________.
Study Questions
1. What does no one want to hear about?
According to Robert McAfee Brown, who writes the Preface to the book for the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Edition, no one wants to confront the fact that a “cultured people,” the Germans, turned to genocide, as a “solution” to their problems while the rest of the world remained silent in the face of this genocide. This means anyone can turn to evil; anyone can join an "Inquisition" in whatever form it takes place.
In a similar fashion, people are less disturbed when Islamic extremists are illiterate and from the underclass. But what of those who are educated and become radicalized? There is the terrifying truth few want to face.
2. What is the greatest indignity we can inflict upon those who suffered the Holocaust?
To tell the victims and their families that their suffering was not real but the product of their illusions or "exaggerations." These people are called Holocaust deniers and history revisionists. Related to the above, are those who either forget or are indifferent to such suffering.
3. What are Wiesel’s motives for telling this true story?
To make people believe what happened and to make people care about what happened so the Holocaust will never happen again. In other words, to bear witness to evil and hold those accountable for their crimes against humanity.
4. Why is Night confused with fiction when in fact it is a work of nonfiction?
Because it has a narrative that is so compelling that people think they are reading a novel but in fact they are reading an autobiography. Also Wiesel wrote the memoir twice, first in an angry tone, then in a melancholy, sad one.
5. What significance is it that the narrator describes his father as having high esteem in the community?
Loss of innocence entails seeing your great father figure reduced to helplessness. Early in the book Wiesel sees his father weep for the first time ever. He also sees his father beaten in the camps for asking to use the bathroom. The humiliation is worse than the blow itself. Some say the loss of his physical father parallels the loss of his spiritual father, his Patriarchal God.
6. How does the narrator introduce the sigh of resignation when Moshe is taken away? And what does this sigh signify?
People spin badness into a better reality because they don’t want to make the necessary changes to adapt to evil.
7. What has happened to Moshe that has changed him forever?
8. How do the townspeople react to Moshe’s witness to the atrocities he saw and suffered?
Get away. You’re disturbing and inconveniencing me. Many don’t believe Moshe, including the narrator. No one listens to him, at their peril. And they ignore the rumors that Hitler wants to kill the Jews in mass, that is commit genocide against them. They keep intoxicating themselves with misguided optimism.
9. How does misguided optimism meet every turn of worse news?
The Germans invade Hungary. Jews are beaten. Jewish shops closed. Nazis occupy Jewish homes. Synagogues close. Leaders of Jewish community are arrested. Jews can’t leave their homes or they’ll be shot. Jews are forced to hand their valuables to Hungarian police. Jews must wear a yellow star on their sleeve. Jews forced to move to ghettos. “It will be okay. The war will be over. The Red Army will arrive and we will be free and everything will be like it was once before.” The human capacity for denial and self-delusion is infinite. But wait. More bad news. Deportation. Trains. Stuffed in them like cattle. Why are we going? It’s a secret. Apparently it’s to get farther away from the front lines of the war. Another delusion. And once they start moving on the trains yet another delusion. Nothing can be worse than being packed in the trains and thirsty and overheated. An illusion. About 12 stages of delusions.
10. What is the point of no return?
By the time they understand they are in the clutches of evil, it’s too late. As we read in the untitled Chapter 1, “We were on our way.” And in the second chapter, “Our eyes were opened, but too late.”
11. What vision afflicts Madame Schachter and how does her situation parallel Moshe the Beadle’s?
After trying to ignore here repeatedly, the train stops to the smell of burning bodies, a “foul odor.” Dead bodies will be thrown into a fiery crematorium but also, we shall find in Chapter 3, will be live babies tossed into the flames.
12. Why do the experienced prisoners spit so much venomous hatred toward the new prisoners at the start of Chapter 3?
They resent their willed ignorance in part and also they have become snarling animals having lost a large part of their humanity as they now exist in “survival mode.” To become mean and heartless becomes a way to numb ourselves from the horrors.
13. What is Wiesel’s “nightmare” in Chapter 3?
Not just the evil, but that the evil, burning adults and children, was ignored and that people were also ignorant of it; in some cases people were willfully ignorant, that is, silent about abominations taking place.
14. How is the theme of nihilism introduced in Chapter 3? No more humanity. “Today anything is possible, even those crematories.” There is a famous quote by Dostoevski: "If God does not exist, everything is permitted."
15. Why does Elie question prayer in Chapter 3?
God was silent in the face of the Holocaust. His God was murdered and so was his desire to live. He would never forget (page 32, my edition). Perhaps the only spark that kept him alive was his desire to bear truth to the evil he witnessed.
16. What is the process of dehumanization in Chapter 3?
See the Stanford Study, discussed in Chocolate War lectures. In many studies, we find that the oppressor begins to see the captives as subhuman and the abuses grow worse and worse over time.
17. How does Elie Wiesel relate to Job in Chapter 3?
He does not question God's existence or power, but he questions God's justice. Someone says God is testing them with this trial as an act of love. Page 42, my version.
Theodicy Introduction
Theodicy is the belief that we can have faith in an all-good, all-powerful God in the presence of the world's evil.
That God appears to intervene is some instances and not others is an impediment for many.
Defenders of theodicy often argue that God has to allow evil to happen because God gave us free will. If no evil existed, the argument goes, we would be robots.
Many, like Bart Ehrman cannot believe in theodicy and such an inability results in the loss of Ehrman's faith.
How the problem of theodicy made Bart Ehrman lose his faith.
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