Who's The Enemy?

Elie Wiesel’s novel Day, tells the story of a character that had previously survived the dreadful events of WWII. This character’s life is based on real facts and life events of Elie Wiesel himself, as he tells us in the preface. He tells us how his hero [the main character] having already struggled through the war, now has to surpass his horrible past and memories. And become subject of change, yet not only him, but as Wiesel learns and later tells us, suffering of one (apart rom changing oneself), can also destroy the others. And know try to, without much success, find hope and believe in the future. Additionally having those constant thoughts leading to guilt, of why his life was saved, while there where 60 million that others weren’t.

Since the preface, and the beginning of the first chapter, the author introduces to us the accident, which is mainly what the whole novel is about. Yet the curious thing is, that before the accident actually happened, the author when talking about it does so as if at the time he already knew it was going to happen: “We where still in the same spot. Why hadn’t we moved? I don’t know. Perhaps we where waiting for the accident” (Pg. 5).

Another interesting or rather curios aspect of this first chapter is the characters doctor. After a conversation between them about God, the character tells how even when he was in pain, after this conversation, the doctor didn’t touch him, he did nothing. And according to Elie’s hero (the character), the doctor acted this way because he knew. But the question is, what did the doctor know? And why did his attitude change? “Again I had the uncomfortable impression that he knew-or at least that he suspected-something.”

Elie chooses to end the chapter talking about Kathleen, the character’s girlfriend, and again for me this is curious. Since after all the talk about God and death, and the future, and the questioning toward what or who is the enemy, he decides to take us to the past, o rather make a connection to it: “ It had been cold on the day-no, the evening, the evening when I met Kathleen for the first time”.