Loss_of_Innocence

Thesis: In Night by Wiesel and The Hiding Place by Ten Boom, the transformation of the main characters to becoming concerned only with self survival is not a conscious decision but is influenced by events in each character’s life. This can be seen by examining loss of innocence and psychological factors. In the novels Night and The Hiding Place, the characters’ loss of innocence is a strong component of their conversion to self awareness alone, and their conversion to caring only of self survival. Three aspects play key roles in contributing to the characters’ loss of innocence. These three aspects include murder, brutality, and crime. These things open the characters’ minds to things they have never seen, and could never dream of encountering, which destroy the original innocent nature of each character, and pull them from caring about others. The introduction of murder into a person’s life by mass graves and concentration camps affects the person in horrible ways, including loss of innocence. In Night by Wiesel his mentor, Moishe the Beadle tells him, “Without passion or haste, they shot their prisoners, who were forced to approach the trench one by one and offer their necks. Infants were tossed into the air and used as targets for the machine guns” (Wiesel 6). All foreign Jews had been expelled from Sighet, and this was their outcome. This affected Elie just by hearing it, but Moishe the Beadle was never the same, “He closed his eyes, as if to escape time, ‘You don’t understand’… ‘You can’t understand’ ” (Wiesel 7). This event turned his life around and shattered his innocent nature. The same outcome occurs with the introduction to concentration camps. Concentration camps were designed by the Nazis to break down a prisoner. Torture, starvation, forced labor and many more things were all meant to break a prisoner down mentally and physically, which strips innocence from them. In Night as Elie is being marched past the crematoria, he sees, “a truck drew close and unloaded its hold: small children. Babies! Yes, I did see this. With my own eyes…children thrown into the flames” (Wiesel 32). Experiencing an image such as this is almost enough in itself to change how the viewer sees the world. A baby is representation for innocence, a human being that has not done or ever thought of doing wrong; pure. Wiesel later adds, “Is it any wonder that ever since then, sleep tends to elude me'” (Wiesel 32). This single scene changes his perception of innocence and even causes him to lose sleep years later in life. Another powerful factor contributing to the character’s loss of innocence is brutality. Brutality induced by beating, starvation, and forced labor is a very strong contribution to the loss of an individual’s innocence. In The Hiding Place as Betsie weakens from age and starvation, a guard strikes her for her inefficiency; “and snatching the leather crop from her belt she lashed Betsie across the chest and neck” (Ten Boom 204). She is an old and starving woman but is still beaten for not being able to keep up with others who are younger and stronger. Likewise, in Night Elie sees the man in charge of him messing around with a young polish girl, and in return the man beats him. “I no longer felt anything but the lashes of the whip. ‘One! ... Two! …’ he was counting” (Wiesel 57). The man counted to twenty-five before Elie fainted. Elie was a young boy at the time, but disregarded as one. Over time this constant beating takes away a person’s hope and innocence. Starvation is another aspect to the loss of innocence through brutality. In The Hiding Place Betsie and Corrie and their inmates are made to march to a new concentration camp and not given an ounce of food or drink. “We were thirsty and hungry: we had nothing to eat or drink since the early meal at Scheveningen the morning before” (Ten Boom). For days they marched. Elie has to do the same thing in Night, except they are forced to run for days to a new camp. In this case, the guards “had orders to shoot anyone who could not sustain the pace… If one of us stopped for a second, a quick shot eliminated the filthy dog” (Wiesel 85). Many people on this run did not make it and were murdered. The guards “did not deprive themselves of the pleasure” and seeing this as a young boy completely distorts one’s view of how things should be, shattering innocence with brutality (Wiesel 85). A third factor contributing to the characters’ loss of innocence is crime. Crime is different from the other two components mentions previously. Crime is something done by the characters themselves and not inflicted upon them, yet still affecting their innocent nature and altering their thought process. Necessary crimes are the ones to come first because these are done in order to insure self survival. Corrie, being a woman who does not lie, had to be trained to do so. “ ‘Where are you hiding your nine Jews'’ ‘We only have six Jews now’ ” (Ten Boom 114). This goes against what she has done her whole life, it turns her world upside down and reverses her innocence. Eventually these small crimes lead to much bigger ones and even to unnecessary crimes. These are committed not solely for the purpose of self survival, but for some other reason, and sometimes there is no reasoning. In Night the prisoners are being transferred in train cars to concentration camps. While stopped in a town, locals through bread into the cars to watch people fight over them. An old man grabs a loaf and crawls to a corner where someone begins to beat him. He cries, “Meir, my little Meir! Don’t you recognize me… you’re killing your father… I have bread… for you too…” (Wiesel 101). His own son beats him to death for a single loaf of bread that his father was going to share with him. His innocence has been completely destroyed to make him kill his own father, which takes away his conscience. Crime only added to the characters’ loss of innocence, destroying their lives.