Elie's father
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeyzOvWQzFI
Elie's memories of father
In chapter 2 and 3, Elie and his father are sent to concentration camp in Auschwitz. After the speech of SS officer, Elie’s father asks Gypsy for the location of toilet. Even though he asks in highly polite manner, the Gypsy severely beats Elie’s father up right in front of Elie. Elie sees the Gypsy slapping “my father with such force that he fell down and then crawled back to his place on all fours” (39), however, he “stood petrified”(39) and doesn’t show any reaction. All he could do is just to follow what the officer suggests him to do: keep silent. This response enormously affects the way Elie sees himself; he doubts his personality. This is because the day before, he mentioned that he would “dug my nails into this criminals’ flesh”(39) if they ever attack, however, the reality is that he remains silent and just watches his father being severely beaten. Because of his response, he is irritated and criticizes himself for doing nothing for his father who believes he loves the most. He then fears himself that he changes unpredictably fast; his thoughts and courage are completely gone in a day. The reality is that he cannot do anything toward the evils but just to “never forgive them for this”(39). In this chapter, Elie sees selfishness inside of him for the first time that he does not fight for his father, but chooses to keep silent so that he would not be involved in the beating. One can infer that change in Elie’s mind is due to the bad environment of the concentration camp because he has seen many Jewish people being severely beaten, or even killed, by SS officers when they disobey. Also, since he sensed that Jewish people, including him, do not have enough power to protest against the SS officers, fear of death must be naturally formed inside of him. Even though he felt guilty and wanted to do something, fear for beating and eagerness of survival were much stronger than his concerns about father.
bibliography
http://hyperhistory.org/images/assets/stories/dead.jpg image
book as the standard source.
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