Why Desire Death?

We must all think we could imagine how it is for someone after surpassing a tragedy such as the Holocaust, but do we really? Have we the right to even think we can imagine how something that horrific must feel like, and how immensely it would change our live. In my opinion, no, I couldn’t say I can imagine it, much less could I assimilate with how such a atrocious past affects my present and would change my future.

The Novel Day by Ellie Wiesel, in a much different way from any other biography, memoir, or story of the Holocaust, explains every singe effect it can have on a person better than any other narration that I have ever read. This being told in a way, which is not meant to be expressed directly, rather it is told in a story. Such story based on real facts of a person’s life after having been present and a victim of the Holocaust, showing us the effects it all had on his future.

What is most clearly represented from the very first, to the last chapter of the memoir is death. Death in every way possible. The character manages to connect death to everything, from the guilt question: “Why of everyone who died, was I who survived?” To the power of attraction and darkness of the sea, making one think of death. But what he emphasizes the subject of death the most, is when dialoging with his doctor. He speaks of desiring not to live, but rather to be dead. Meanwhile the doctor speaks of the fight between him and the patient (in this case being the main character), versus death. But in this case the patient was in the enemies side, in the side of death fighting against life: “I had to wage the fight alone, all alone. Worse. You where on the other side, against me, on the side of the enemy” (Pg. 60).

Even though the whole memoir shows very well that life after the war was never going to be even the slightest as it was before. And how all his thoughts, feelings, actions, and future ‘goals’ were centered basically on death. Showing clearly how his life now is, there is still no way to even imagine how that must be like. In the contrary, after reading this memoir trying to even envision such things seems harder and more confusing. Considering how this man’s thoughts become so deep and for him so real, while for someone who has not lived what he has, such as people like us, wouldn’t understand it the way he perceives it.

Ellie Wiesel (Pg.68): “What it comes down to is that man lives while dying, that he represents death to the living, and that’s where tragedy begins.”