Monday, February 14, 2011

Chapter 9 (pages 113-5): the mirror

Who was the corpse in the mirror? What does it tell you?

Respond to: "The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me."

What do you think Elie was feeling?

26 comments:

  1. This was a harsh time for Elie. He had just gotten out of the worst possible environment a human could ever be in, he had lost almost all his family and he doubted his faith. The corpse that Elie saw in the mirror was he. He didn't recognize the person staring back at him. After all the horrible, inhumane times he had been through in the camps, there would have been sort of a dead look in his face. A look like he was trying to find who he was and what had happened. After the experiences lived throughout in his childhood, all these memories will never leave him. When Elie says, "The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me." says so much about Elie. In this scene, we can see just how Elie is in pieces, how he is wrecked inside. Elie seemed to be in a strong physical position for him to have survived Auschwitz and Buna, yet his mental and emotional strength seem to have collapsed from being a part of one of the most horrible and most gruesome times in our period: The Holocaust.

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  2. Ellie is in a hospital and he gets the chance to look in a mirror, what he sees is a corpse. The corpse in the mirror was Elie. He has finally seen what the end result of all of his struggling in the camp has led to. He has been worked to the bone, he survived off of small amounts of food, he persevered through all of the selections, and he kept running forward. This tells Elie that he has been through hell, and he is one of the few that lived to tell the tale, he survived. Elie was probably feeling relief. He knows that there will not be another roll call, selection, hanging, or horrible train ride. He knows that it is over; he will never have to come face to face with death every death. He has gained strength and assurance that things can only get better. He knows that the nightmare of the Holocaust has ended.
    -Nancy Joykutty

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  3. The corpse in the hospital mirror was Elie himself. He finally saw what the SS had created in him and what he had turned into. He saw death in his eyes and trouble and hardwork. He saw the result of everything that had happened the past year in the concentration camps. (I think it was a year). He made it through the suffering and unusual punishments but in truth, he did suffer. Not only emotionally, but also physically. This is the first time he really got to see this result. Now, yes, he hurt his foot earlier in the book and he saw that result of physical torture, but this is different. This isn't something that would heal in a few weeks. His current physical state was something that would take months, maybe years to recover and fix. I'd be willing to bet that he still has trouble with his weight and also suffers from many heart diseases and other complications as a result of his physicallity. Although the sight was terrible, I'm sure Elie would remember the sight of his face because it is also proof that he made it through. He made it out of the camp alive. It is almost a sign of hope for him. It shows that he can live through anything. He was probably feeling a sense of relief but also hope. He had made it out!! He could face the world by himself now and live. He had already done it once, he could do it again.

    ~~Yolanda

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  4. Elie was feeling a sense of looking back on all that he had been through. He was remembering what he had been like before the Nazis took over, and all the cruelty he had lived through. Elie looks into the mirror and in his face he can see all the losses he suffered, all the people he lost, or watched dying. He sees the face of a person who has seen too much in too short time, because he is really just a boy when this all started. Now, he has seen how man can destroy man, with just the radical promises of a madman, and how humans can believe them. Elie has been the witness to deception, death, trickery, hurt, loss, and countless other things that are etched into his face. He does not see joy now, most likely it will take a long time for him to laugh again. What one man can do to another...

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  5. The last time Elie had seen himself was in the ghetto years ago. The corpse he sees in the mirror is a reflection of himself. Elie has been in the concentration camp for so long he no longer recognizes himself. His physical and emotional state have both been immensely altered since then. The man staring back at him in the mirror has suffered from starvation, numerous beatings, and inhumane living conditions. His childhood has been severely adjusted in a negative and terrifying way and will continue to haunt him throughout the rest of his life. That is why Elie can not relinquish the memory of "the corpse's" eyes out of his mind. His reflection brings back all the memories of the monstrosity of the Germans and their hatred for the Jewish. The memories of all the hurt and suffering he has endured over the past few years is brought back to life. Elie feels relieved, but at the same time, is frightened of this "creature" gazing at him in the mirror. He is reminded of all the terror and horror he has been through and of all he has lost during his years in the concentration camp, a tragedy that can not be easily forgotten.

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  6. Struggling to survive even after the camp and from food poisoning Elie gains enough strength to stand up and to look in the mirror. The corpse in the mirror was Elie looking back at himself, but he didn't want to believe it. Elie had been so weak and frail after the camp, he was as fragile and hurt as any other survivor who ever made it out of Auschwitz. It tells me and explains to me the horror and torture the camps caused to the inmates and how they came out looking after the camp. And a memory and picture that he had never seen before that just burned into his mind and something he would never forget. Elie must have been confused of he fact that he was still alive and that was him in the mirror. As if he didn't believe that what was in the mirror was actually him, yet it was the reality of the outcome of a prisoner who survived Auschwitz.

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  7. The corpse that Elie was looking at is a man that he has never seen before. Starvation, disaster, loss, and other inflictions have wreaked havoc on his body. There is nothing left but a corpse of a man. It’s sad to look in the mirror one morning and many mornings after look again, and discover a whole new person staring back. In sight of the way he acts, it is obvious that the nightmares he dreamt never matched the hell that he lived. A young boy, he was wrenched from his home and transformed into the living dead; A walking corpse.
    -Julieth Udozorh

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  8. Eliezer is struck with food poisoning he has been for weeks on the hospital deathly ill. He finaly sees himself on the mirror and watches a corpse. The corpse that he is whatching is him. He is thin and he is all wasted out from to much work. He now feels that he has to rebuild a new life and leave everything behinnd. He sees himself as a living dead. He is not the young boy he was before.

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  9. Elie had to go to the hspital because he was feeling very ill. There he remained about three weeks between life and death. One day, when he could get up, he saw himself in a mirror. The only thing Elie could distinguish was a corpse looking straight at him. It was no one but Eliezer himself. The quote that he said at that moment: "The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me." makes a lot of sense and expresses what he felt because there was only one explaniation after all that suffering and pain that the holocaust brought into his life; Eliezer Wiesel was the same soul of a young boy, inside an old and deteriorated body.

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  10. Eli was feeling very ill, so he went to the hospital. In the hospital, he sees a mirror. When he walked up to the mirror, he saw a corpse. The corpse was himself. After all the time that had gone by, after all the horrors that he had gone through, and now, he is looking at himself. His feelings are mixed with how he looks from the outside. I just cannot believe Eli survived with so much pain. He lost his whole family, he had to eat disgusting food, sleep late, and watch people die in front of his eyes. So many things he had to think about over and over again. That is just too much for a little boy.

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  11. The corpse is Elie after the holocaust. Showing that everything he went through has caused more damage than he thought. The survival that he thrived for has taken its toll. When Elie looked into his eyes he saw everything he had been through.The dividing of his family to the death of his father. Elie filled with so many emotions does not know what to feel. Grief for his dead family or grateful for his people being saved.

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  12. Elie - as everyone else has already said - is finally looking at himself for the first time since this all began. Gone was the child who would listen to Mosche the Beadle preach to his community. Gone was the once-innocent child. In the child's place now stood a shell of a man. The hardships from the emotional, physical, and mental abuse from the Germans, the inhumane conditions, little food, exhausting runs, at-random shootings... have all made Elie transcend to this shell of a person - no, shell of a human. Just like the other survivors, he's stared death straight in the eye more times then anyone, let alone an innocent - should stare at that abyss. And all of that hardship, all of that survival, all of that pure evil that the Germans showed to the Jews, will never be forgotten: It clearly manifested itself in the corpse Elie saw in the mirror.

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  13. The man staring back at him in the mirror has suffered from starvation, numerous beatings, and inhumane living conditions. His childhood has been severely adjusted in a negative and terrifying way and will continue to haunt him throughout the rest of his life. That is why Elie can not relinquish the memory of "the corpse's" eyes out of his mind. His reflection brings back all the memories of the monstrosity of the Germans and their hatred for the Jewish. The memories of all the hurt and suffering he has endured over the past few years is brought back to life. Elie feels relieved, but at the same time, is frightened of this "creature" gazing at him in the mirror. He is reminded of all the terror and horror he has been through and of all he has lost during his years in the concentration camp, a tragedy that can not be easily forgotten.

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  14. Buchenwald was liberated and Elie as well as the other Jews were free. After a few days, no one spoke of revenge but rather threw themselves onto provisions. All they thought about was food and nothing else. But when Elie is put in the hospital for food poisoning, he suddenly has the desire to see himself in the mirror of his room. He then realizes that he hasn't seen himself ever since he left the ghetto. And as he stares into the mirror, he sees a corpse gazing back at him. The man in the mirror was not him. It was a man that suffered from starvation, beatings, and terrible living conditions. A man that lost his family, home, and humanity. But it was him, Elie Wiesel, staring right back at him. He couldn't believe it was him in the mirror. Elie was a young boy, healthy and full of energy. A young man ready for the day, a man ready for play. What he saw in the mirror was a man who suffered years of hard labor and undernourishment. A man who went through many struggles in life. A man ready to retire. But what he truly saw in the mirror was not just his own suffering but the lives of the many Jews that suffered with him. He is reminded of all the terror that happened at the concentration camps. He is reminded of the many lives that was affected by this tragic event. The look in the eyes of the corpse as they stared at Wiesel's "has never left" his mind. Just as the Holocaust is something that is very much unforgettable.

    -jessica c

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  15. This was a very hard time for Elie, a time where no one can re wind and fix, like a stain in the heart that could never wash out, hee suffered so much from starvation, beatdown and trated hirrible his childhood was ruined and destroyed by people just like them. These were Elie's feelings after the holocaust. When he saw himself in the miror he couldn't believe what he had become, how much he had gone through really changed his life and perspective. It was something he could never forget, even if he tried it could never escape his mind. The miror i believe is one of the most impactant ways he expressed himself in this book in showing how he felt and how worned out he was.

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  16. Like all of the comments before say, Ellie sees himself in the mirror. He sees what the Holocaust let him keep of himself. But in a sense, he is not only looking at himself, he is looking at the all the Jews that survived. He looks into his own dilapidated features and sees each faithless man, every lonely survivor. He is the survivor. Every other holocaust survivor looked into the mirror that day and saw the same sadness, loneliness, and madness. The feeling they all must have felt when they gazed at their weathered features must have been the same. Like the quote says, it never left them. Not just the feeling or the look they have captured in their mind's eye, but also the memories. All the memories, both happy before the terror, and the painful, while they were living in hell, will live on with them. If they share it with their kids and the world, they will pass on their memories onto the future generations. Maybe from this, the world will prevent this horrible thing from happening again.
    -Genesis

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  17. I agree with Genesis. Elie is not only seeing himself, but a representation of all the Jews and what this whole experience has done to them. He hasn't been able to see himself in a mirror for so long, so I believe seeing himself in such a state would have felt very surreal. Elie must have been in disbelief over everything that had happened to him and his family, and in such a small amount of time! Looking into a mirror is something that people simply do, however, people do not always "see" what the mirror shows them. When Elie looks into his reflections eyes its as if he is really "seeing" everything for the first time. At this point I believe he gets an honest view of reality. He sees that all that happened was really there and it wasn't a dream. He survived one of the most horrific events in history, and although the man that stood in front of him was a survivor, I don't believe he honestly felt that he had "survived" anything. Elie realized that from now on his life would never be the same and that he was changed forever.

    -Katie Darmofal

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  18. The corpse that Elie saw in the mirror was himself. He looked as though he were one of the walking dead. From the torture and starvation he experienced in the concentration camps Elie no longer looked like himself. He had changed into a completely different person. He had lost weight, gotten sick and all of this had the worse effects someone could expect. It surprised me that Elie never once spoke about the appearance of the other prisoners. He never really described that the other prisoners looked like walking corpses. Elie was probably feeling relief but at the same time pain and loneliness. He no longer has his family and he still has a long way to go to recover. His perseverance has gotten him freedom but he still does not know what to expect. He can at least count on the fact that he can live freely without having to worry about selection, ringing bells, or finding enough food.

    -Evelyn M.

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  19. The corpse in the mirror was what was left of Elie. Even though he was alive, living and breathing, the spirit inside of him was as dead as the rest of his family. In his mind, he probably thought, "What do I have left to live for?" His family was dead. He had no home. He no longer had a place in the world and felt as though he belonged with the dead. Having experienced the toll of the concentration camps, he was nothing like the Elie he once knew. The hopeful, optimistic Elie who had once trusted in God and planned to become a cabbalist had already died with his family. What was left was a lonely, emptied person who was only physically alive, which is what he saw in the mirror.
    -Sonya

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  20. The corpse in the mirror was Ellie. He saw himself as someone who had lived a tortuous life, died, and went to hell itself. No person could ever live life as he did thats why he considered himself a corpse. He was frail, thinner than a piece of paper, and hadn't seen hope in life for a very long time. He was feeling the worst possible pain right then because he saw what the Germans had turned him into, a lifeless human being. Ellie will never be the same after what has happened to him. Meaning the corpse in the mirror is his old self dying and his new self that has endured every pain imaginable is just coming to life. This new person that he has become will learn from the corpse and know that there are more than just dark alleys to be afraid of. He will know that there are people to fear and things to be run from. Something that most of us wouldn't have known because of this event.

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  21. when Elie had first entered the camp he was a youthful, healthy, fortunate, young man with no worries in the world. As time passed and tragedy had stricken him enough in the camps he realized how bad life could be. He no longer had contact with the women of his family. It was Elie and his dad against the world. They were forced to fend for themselves. Beaten if they didn't do what they were told. The Jews were starved and forced to due harsh labor. They were told to run in in snow bare foot. Those horrific conditions became the norm to Elie. He saw death everyday. He escaped the depths of death each night he would sleep in the blocks. He was stripped of his identity in those years within the camp. So when he looked in the mirror he didn't know what to expect to see. It seemed as if he was outside his body looking in. Elie's apperance was surreal, as well as the Holocaust...
    -KeAmber Green

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  22. The corpse that Elie saw in teh mirror was himself. He never had a chance to look at his appearence while in the camp. When he arrived, he was young and healthy. He knew that he would not look the same. How could he when he as a person. How he could look the same after all the horrors he went through. He was nearly starved to death, beat a few times, and was all alone. He took the time to look at himself after he was freed, and he did not recognize the person he saw. It was not him. He was not himself anymore. He was a person with no faith, no family, and horrible memories. When he says that "The look in his eyes as he gazed at has never left me" he means that he will never forget it. He will never forget what he went through, or who came out of it all. He will never forget the pain. He did not feel worthy of survivng. He did not feel like he was lucky. Because no matter what happens in the future, the memories will fallow him everywhere. -vanessa gonzalez

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  23. The corpse, in fact, is Elie himself. The corpse in the mirror was him, as a dead person walking alive. In the concentration camps, the torture and work they had to live with was basically killing them all, dead or alive. The Jews were walkin corpses, dieing off in the living. He says, "The look in his eyes as he gazed at has never left me", by what he means that he will never forget what he is seeing in the mirror. He will never forget anything that has happened, and it will haunt him until his time comes. Some may say he should feel relieved that he is free, and that he is safe, but the fact is, he is not. The memories will follow him, the deaths, the pain, the loss of hope, these will follow him everywhere. But although, one of the fears is gone. The horrid event, of the Holocaust

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  24. The corpse in the mirror was Elie Wiesel. He was looking deep into the reflection of a walking dead man. If the person looking back at Elie looked like a “corpse”, then that’s how he must have felt. He must have felt like he was dead, like if it was a dream that someone that barely had signs of being alive, could indeed be alive and breathing. Elie was probably terrified at what he saw in the mirror, of what he was, but then again maybe he was not terrified, he had seen hell proceed right before his eyes for months. He saw faces like his walking the camps. He had seen the dead walk every day at Auschwitz.
    -Cecilia

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  25. Elie has felt so many things throughout his experiences in the Holocaust and he was almost saying to his readers that he had no emotions left to feel. As if he were looking at a corpse with no life left in his soul or even a soul left in his body. It made me even feel things I have never felt before or atleast not in a really long time. I started to feel despair, sadness, and even hope for the fact the he managed to live through all of this. It made me a little happy and hopeful for him. All he could feel was dread and emptiness while I only felt his inner hope. Michael L

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