Open Your Eyes Good versus evil is a battle as old as mankind. Every second of every day, the score changes. Sometimes, good is winning. Other times, evil. But at the end of day, good always prevails. Always. In the novel All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, Werner, an “eighteen-year-old” Nazi soldier, blurs the line between good and evil on a daily basis. As an unwilling soldier of the Reich, Werner is faced with difficult decisions that force him to examine the relationship between his allegiance and his morality. He is also affected by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s statement, “The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.” For Werner, his choices were never straightforward. Yet, Werner almost always took …show more content…
However, good always prevails in the end. It is a culmination of small, seemingly insignificant actions that generates the victory. By letting Marie off the hook — a blatant, treasonous violation of his duties punishable by death — Werner attempts to regain control of his life. At that moment, Werner chose good over evil. While his decision was certainly not an easy one and one that would be viewed as the wrong decision by his colleagues, Werner made it because he felt like he had to. Because he felt like he had no other choice. It is in times like these, when we feel like we have no other choice, that our deepest, darkest desires for good emerge and affect the environment around us. For Werner, it was the imagery of his friend Frederick saying he would not dump cold water on a prisoner bound and gagged in the freezing cold (407). Frederick had the courage to say no, so surely Werner had it too. The courage to say no, to say nichts, is what ensures good prevails over evil in the world. Werner’s story taught us there will always be evil, but as long as there is courage and community, good will prevail. By making the choices that align with our morals, by utilizing our free will, we can ensure the outcome. Werner asks himself and the reader, “Is it right to do something only because everyone else is doing it?” (Doerr 246). Werner’s story tells us the correct answer is no. One should do something because it is the right
Wiesel pinpoints the indifference of humans as the real enemy, causing further suffering and lost to those already in peril. Wiesel commenced the speech with an interesting attention getter: a story about a young Jewish from a small town that was at the end of war liberated from Nazi rule by American soldiers. This young boy was in fact himself. The first-hand experience of cruelty gave him credibility in discussing the dangers of indifference; he was a victim himself.
Anthony Doerr in the shelf-rattling novel All the Light we Cannot See tells the story of World War 2 through the eyes of two characters. Each chapter alternates between a girl named Marie-Laure, a scared and clueless blind girl who is French, and a boy named Werner, who is enlisted in the Nazi forces at the age of 12. By doing this, the author shows two sides of the same war, one of the French and one of the Germans. The way the author writes and portrays the book is unique, and just the idea of telling it from two perspectives is my favorite part of the novel. This writing style leads to unique perspectives of the war, but it also confuses the reader at times.
He also wants the reader to better understand and contemplate how these moral decisions impacted the course of the war and postwar era. He asks the difficult moral questions that challenge the moral clarity and high ground that we tend to view the World War II with. Richard Overy begins Why the Allies
In All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, the two protagonists from opposing countries, Marie-Laure and Werner, unite together when Werner’s desire to redeem himself after committing despicable actions leads him to abandoning the Nazis and aiding her. For instance, when working for the Nazi intelligence, he unintentionally leads his accomplices to an innocent home where they falsely murder a young girl and her mother. After meeting Marie-Laure: “[He] thinks of [Marie-Laure], whether he wishes to or not… She takes up residence inside him, a living doppelganger to face down the dead Viennese girl who haunts him every night” (423). Because Werner has a strong conscience and feels liable for the death of the Viennese girl, he is unable to
The Holocaust was a terrible time in the world’s history. Not many Jewish people made it out of the Holocaust alive, but Elie Wiesel not only made it through the dark years, but he also wrote a book and delivered a speech. Both of these things were meant to tell the world about the horrors that happened in the concentration camps and raise awareness about the Holocaust. The book Night tells us what Elie’s journey throughout 1943-1945 (the time of the Holocaust) was like with Nazis controlling the Jews. In the speech Perils of Indifference, Elie explains why it is dangerous to not have an opinion on certain topics.
He is very well known for his memoir “Night” and his speech “Perils of Indifference.” The message is much more prominent in his book “Night” rather than his speech. Real life examples are provided, it is more understandable, and it leaves you with something to think about. The length, connections, and abundant amount of description helps promote the message as well as the book tells us why we can never let such indifference as the Holocaust happen again.
At the beginning of the book, Brother Worbs prayed to god to rid of the Nazis and their horrible actions and now he is found broken and miserable, all because he decided to tell the truth. Certainly, it could be said, that Brother Worbs did the right thing even though there were punishments, while this is a good point, it fails to account for that it benefited no one. Even after Brother Worbs’s statement, the society didn’t change, instead, Brother Worbs was punished and almost killed. This was also the same with Helmuth, he died trying the do the right thing, and yet, most of the society decided to do nothing. So the Nazis continued to terrorize people for years until they were finally
Throughout the history of the world, people have displayed hatred towards each other by fighting many wars. Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, gave a speech at Buchenwald to the President, Chancellor, and people of Germany. Throughout the speech, he establishes that people should learn from past experiences that war, hatred, and racism are meaningless. He accomplishes this belief by using pathos to connect to people’s feelings and emotions. By using pathos, Wiesel develops the central idea of the speech that everyone should change for the better future by accepting wars, hatred, and racism as “not an option.”
By examining the outcomes of the sins shown, it is clear, showing the outcomes of humanity’s capacity for evil. In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, the main character and his father were taken by the Nazis and were in a camp. The Nazis show many examples of the theme of humanity's capacity for evil. One sin shown is when the Nazis treated the Jewish people horribly.
In the world today, there are good kind hearted people, and there are also individuals who have immoral ulterior motives. But, to truly gain an insightful view of the person is to regard their actions under extreme conditions and pressure. While Elie Wiesel suffers during the Holocaust in his memoir Night, he witnesses the actions—whether good or bad, of the people he meets, and their motives that were never forgotten, as displayed in the novel. Since the Holocaust was an extreme event that caused pressure to make the right decisions, and suffer by the hands of the Nazis, or to act with neglect to the victims and be ridden with guilt, it can be said many Holocaust victims suffered, and some of the bystanders noticed and took action. One such
In the poem, “On the Divine” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the author states, “Noble be Man,/ Generous and good”. This quote is meant to show that mankind is to be noble and good from a very optimistic perspective. However, put in such an event as the Holocaust, for example, this quote is proven wrong, for mankind has just as much potential to be noble and kind as they do to be selfish and cruel. In the Holocaust memoir, Night, by Elie Wiesel, the author proves just this. The author, being a survivor of the Holocaust, writes of his first hand experience struggling through the awful events that happened to him and many other innocent people.
Can light be found in a world of brutality and darkness? In Anthony Doerr’s All The Light We Cannot See, two protagonists experience the brutality of war and the loss of innocence it takes to survive. Marie-Laure is a blind girl from France who loves speaking on the radio and Werner Pfenning is an orphaned boy from Germany who loves listening to broadcasted recordings. The book follows the separate lives of the two as they share insight into their own lives in clashing countries. Marie-Laure and Werner are able to note that humanity exists on opposing sides of war through their connection with the radio and their perception of their responsibilities in war.
In Friedrich Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, he creates a “new” evaluative system in which he distinguishes between the will to truth and the will to power and separates virtues from vices (1). In this book, Nietzsche rejects the values of traditional philosophy by using truth as opposed to lies and moral goodness instead of evil or bad (1). He begins to replace the traditional values with his preferences of strength and healthiness versus weakness and unhealthiness (2). His passionate and opinionated writing gives us clear insight into his perspectives and allows us to see the opposites values he contrasts (2).
MacIntyre makes it clear that through the possession of the universal truths, one is able to re-educate others on the true virtues of the world, and help them to get rid of their vices. Nevertheless, through these truths, complete re-education is not always necessary. With the use of the Nazi example, MacIntyre shows that while the Nazi has to be re-educated in the concepts of virtues like humility and charity(180), there are previously obtained virtues that should not be forgotten about. Specifically “avoiding both cowardice and intemperate rashness in the face of harm and danger”(180). This relationship between the universal, and the particular, is necessary for MacIntyre since the universal can be used for a standard of comparison and an indicator for injustice.
The world we live in is plagued with suffering. Murder, theft, environmental disasters; you name it, someone in the universe has experienced it. Despite all of the tragedies that go on in the world, people still have a sense of faith that someone is looking out for us, that someone being God. While there are definitely people who believe that God could do no wrong, there are others who are a bit more skeptical. For some, the idea that there would be a God that lets all of the evil in the world occur and has no power to put an end to it makes it hard to accept the fact that there even truly is a God.