Prisoner Post

By -
You know, when I was in high school, we had to read Night by Elie Wiesel three times. I know, it sounds crazy, but they kept bumping it up year after year because it was "too mature". So I had to read it three times before I graduated.

And it still didn't prepare me for the horrors of the holocaust. I don't think anything ever could. Especially not when we see what it does to people. Both the predictable and the unpredictable. Like Elie's experience throughout World War 2, we see Yanek slowly change. Which is to be expected, of course, but it's such a slow and subtle thing. So creeping, yet powerful enough that it's not so much subtle as much as it is strong. It's a permanent, complete outlook change.

We see Yanek begin this story as a happy, relatively carefree child. But as the war wages on and his world gets darker and darker, Yanek too becomes hardened. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. He goes through major character development, and his changes are fascinating and terrible. And in developing his newfound traits, this "toughness", he is able to survive in America.

Which, you know, isn't really that sweet of a deal. But the point is, he faced adversity and he used it to become someone greater than he was before. And that's pretty inspiring.

I can't not compare this to Night. But the thing about holocaust stories is that each one doesn't have to be unique and different. There's not going to be some secret twist at the end where everything turns out to be better, or worse, or any of that. So when we read stories like this, we have to focus on the characters. Because these strong, resilient people are the only glimmers of hope we get between these pages.

And I think that's both heart-wrenching and incredible inspiring.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Growing Pains - The Symbolism of the Tree in Speak

By -
I have felt the paralyzing pain of internal disease. The kind of trauma that causes your mouth to curl in and swallow you whole. I, like so many other women, are walking the halls in Melinda’s shoes in “Speak.” I thought Laurie Anderson did a phenomenal job of twisting all of the tribulations a high school girl goes through, into the tree that Melinda is. Whether we’re as strong as an oak or weak as a bush, we have all gone through the disease that strikes Melinda from the inside out. Melinda is like a half-dead tree. Some parts of her strive to blossom and create beauty. Other parts are broken and diseased. Like a dead tree, Melinda needs to save herself and “cut off the damage, [so it] is possible for the tree to grow again” (187). The symbolism of a tree is significant in “Speak.” Trees reflect her growing process. In the beginning, Melinda is a sick and lifeless tree. Her view is negative and dark. She’s so far past repair, bursts of sunlight do her no good. Sunlight would be pe
Read more

How Starr Goes from Acting to Embracing in The Hate U Give

By -
In The Hate U Give, Starr Carter is caught between two worlds. She lives in a predominantly black neighborhood, but her father sends her and her brothers to a private school where she is surrounded by white people. She talks about acting differently depending on what group she is around, which can create some identity problems. She says on page 11, "Funny how it works with white kids though. It's dope to be black until it's hard to be black." When at Williamson, she sees white kids that think it's cool to engage in black culture, but she knows they don't understand what she goes through in her Garden Heights community. She witnessed her friend Natasha's death when she was 10 years old, and she sees gang activity in her community all the time. When she is among her black friends, like at the party, they tease her for hanging out with the white kids. This reminds me of a Drake song where he says, "I used to get teased for being black, and now I'm
Read more

Speak and the Symbolism of Nature

By Anonymous -
   Laurie Halse Anderson's,  Speak , dives into the murky, muddy waters of adolescent rape culture. When the book was published in 1999, rape was not a comfortable topic to discuss with adults, let alone teenagers. Anderson writes about Melinda Sordino and her freshman high school experience which is turning out to be rather negative. Soriano stands as a thriving young role model for struggling teenage girls all over the world. Although she isn't an outstanding student or have plenty of friends to juggle, through Melinda, other young women can see that it's completely normal and okay to struggle in high school not only academically, but socially and emotionally. One of my favorite parts of the novel isn't a super obvious quality. Throughout the novel, Melinda's attitude changes and grows with the coming of spring and through nature and art, she learns to move past her troubling end of summer experience and once again find the importance of her voice.    Melinda st
Read more