Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Chapter 5 (pages 66-84): Bells 2

How do the bells in the prison compare to the bells at school?

8 comments:

  1. Well the bells at school tell us when we have to go. They signal the beginning and end of school, each class period, and each lunch period. The same is for the bells in the prison. The bell gives Elie orders, and he has to follow them. The bells at school and in the prison regulate everything. There is a difference in the two bells. The school bell tells us to go home and see you tomorrow; it causes a momentary separation from friends. The prison bell tells you to go back to your block; it separates friends and family, and says maybe I will see you tomorrow if you can live till then. The prison bell gives strict orders that if you disobey you may die. Thankfully the school bell is not as strict and disobeying does not lead to death.
    -Nancy Joykutty

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  2. The biggest difference I see is that students look forward to hearing the bells at school. It means class is over, a new one is about to begin and the day is almost through. When Elie and the prisoners hear the bell, it is giving them an order. They don't look forward to it because it means that they must now perform in whatever way they are told to. The bells in the concentration camp reduce the Jewish people to little more than slaves, as they have no choice but to obey. However, in both instances the bells represent a movement. Those listening, both the Jewish prisoners then and students now, know that when we hear a bell something is changing.

    - Katie :)

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  3. "Whenever I dreamed of a better world, I could only imagine a universe with no bells" (Wiesel 69-70). Unlike students, Elie and the other prisoners dread the sound of the bells. They serve as an indication of more work and suffering. The bells signify an order that must be followed or else you face the risk of execution. Since Elie's father does not pass the selection process, the bells also cause seperation between him and Elie. This is one thing Elie desperately tries to avoid. Students, especially by the time they reach high school, anxiously await the ringing of the school bell. It is a signal that the school day is one period closer to being over. Therefore, students look forward to the bells in contrast to the Jewish prisoners who cringe at the sound of the menacing and ominous bells. At the same time the bells in both the concentration camp and the school serve the same basic purpose: to regulate passage. In both cases the bells inform people when it is the appropriate time to move to a new location. The school bells advise the students to move to their next class, to lunch, or to go home. The prison bells control when the Jews must move to their barracks, work stations, or to the showers.

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  4. Surely there is not a big difference between the two bells. They both serve for the same purpose,to get people to go from one place to another. At a school, the bell will demand "students" to go from class to class or to the playground. At a concentration camp, "prisoners" will be demanded to go from a place such a block to perhaps a bathroom (in the poorest condition). But one thing that clearly separated these to bells was the last ring. At the end of the day the bell would ring at school and you'd say "good bye see you tomorrow" to your friends. At school, for sure you'd come back alive but you never knew at the camps. The last bell on one of the camps could have meant death in the gas chambers.

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  5. I agree with Payton, There isn't much difference if you look at them from a wide view, as they each signal a moving, from classroom to classroom, or from wherever the SS had you to another place. The last ring, as he says, is the complete opposite, because the final school bell is joyful, while the final bell in the camps is sorrowful, because you can't tell if you will live to see tomorrow. If you look at the bells closely, there is difference though, because the bells at school are just simply notifications, (at least here) you don't have to follow them, if you don't mind going to court for truancy, but at the camps, if didn't obey the bells, you would be killed, mercilessly. Sure there, are similarities, but those are thinking in general terms, like if I said that oranges and bananas are similar because they are both fruits.

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  6. I also agree on Payton really the bells are not that different they just tell you when you ahve to move from one place to another. In school the bell is that go to your classes to work and in the camps are the same, but the bells for classes you can go slowly without no one pressuring you and laughing, the bells of the camps are the opposite, you can't laugh, you can't walk, and you always had to be pressured.

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  7. I also agree with Payton, the bells are pretty similar. School bells tell you that you need to get to class or go somewhere while in the concentration camps, the bells tell you were to go, what to do, when to do it, etc. The difference is that at school you can just relax while you are going to your classes while in the concentration camp’s bells, you have to hurry up and go quietly and efficiently. In the concentration camps however, the bells can ring to tell you to go to places that you will die in like the crematories and they can also make you go to work for countless of hours until you collapse of exhaustion and eventually be killed. In my school, the bells just tell you that there is 5 minutes before classes start, you can come late but have to get a pass. I think that in the concentration camps, you absolutely couldn’t come late. Anyways, the bells are pretty similar but at the same time very different in the things that they make you do.

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  8. The biggest difference between the bells was that the prison bell marked the end of your life and the school bell the end of the day. The thing that had most of the jews doughting was the feeling that you did not know if you were going to be alive the next day or if the Nazzis would cremate you or just shoot you. atleast in school you were ashured that the next day you would see your friends and family as usual, not in concentration camps though.

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