Dawn Essay, Research Paper
Dawn by Elie Wiesel Chapter 1 Takes place in Palestine.
The narrator knows that he has to kill a man tomorrow. He
doesn?t know who it is but he knows what he has to do. The
man that was going to die was an Englishman. The reason
that he had to kill was because there is a war. Beggar. A
man that taught the narrator the difference between night and
day. Narrator met him while he was at the synagogue. The
man wears black clothes. The narrator met the man when he
was 12 years old. The narrator, as a child admitted to the
beggar that he was definitely afraid of the beggar. ?Night is
purer than day; it is better for thinking and loving and
dreaming.? (4) The man wants to teach the narrator to
distinguish between night and day. The beggar taught the
narrator to look into the dusk and there would be a face that
would appear. Night has a face and day does not. The face
that appears is of a dead person. The night before the
narrator does what he has to do, he looks into the night and
sees his own face. There is going to be an execution at
dawn. All of the executions happened at dawn. The
?Movement? always kept their word. A month earlier there
was one of their fighters that had been on a terrorist
operation. He was hauled in by the police and they found
weapons on him. They hung the man. By law this is what
they were supposed to do. This was the tenth death
sentence by the mandatory power in Palestine. The ?Old
Man? decided that things had gone far enough and now he
was not going to allow the English to rule any longer. The
Old Man ordered that a military officer be kidnapped. They
kidnapped Captain John Dawson who walked alone at
night. (6) This made the country very tense. The English
ordered a 24 hour curfew. They searched every house, and
also arrested hundreds of suspects. Tanks were stationed at
the crossroads, barbed wire barricades at street corners.
They did not find the hostage. The High Commissioner of
Palestine said that the whole country would be held
responsible for the murder of the Captain, if he was in fact
murdered. A few people got in touch with the Old Man and
told him not to go too far. They wanted the man that was
supposed to die, to live. If he died than the Captain would
die. The mother of the Captain demanded that the English
give up the young Jew so that she could have her son back.
The men told her that ?The Jews will never do it.? (8) The
Palestinians would not give up the Captain because it would
show a sign of weakness. The English would not agree to
the pardon because it would show a sign of weakness. It
was announced over radio that the Jew was to be executed
the next day. They said nothing about the Captain but
everyone knew that he would die also. The narrator asked
Gad who was going to kill the Captain who was going to kill
the Captain. He replied ?You are.? It was an order from the
Old Man. To Gad it was not a big deal. The narrator was
amazed by the whole thing. Definite connection to Night.
Foreshadow of events. Not wanting to Kill. But being
ordered. Chapter 2 The narrator?s name is Elisha. Age 18.
?Gad had recruited me for the Movement and brought me to
Palestine. He had made me into a terrorist.? (11) The
narrator was held in Buchenwald, a prison camp during the
World War. The Americans liberated it and then they
offered to send him home. He rejected it because he knew
that his parents were dead and that his house and lands were
under the control of foreign hands. He went to Paris and that
is where he met Gad. He was offered asylum in France. He
wanted to learn the language and go to school. but Gad
came into his life. ?The study of philosophy attracted me
because I wanted to understand the meaning of the events of
which I had been the victim.? (12) ?In the concentration
camp I had cried out in sorrow and anger against God and
also against man, who seemed to have inherited only the
cruelty of his creator.? (12) Gad, one night, knocked on the
narrators door and walked in. The narrator did not have any
acquaintances in Paris. The person at the door said that he
knew everything about him. The narrator compares Gad to
God. ?He said ?I am Gad? in the same way the Jehovah said
?I am that I am.?? (14) Also compared him to Meshulah, the
mysterious messenger of fate to whom nothing is impossible.
(15) ?In the Hassidic legends the messenger is always
portrayed standing…? (16) the man would not sit down. The
struggle of the group was to make their homeland free from
outside intervention. ?This was the first story I had ever
heard in which the Jews were not the ones to be afraid.?
(17) Gad ?Here is the dawn. In our land it is very different.
Here the Dawn is gray; in Palestine it is red like fire.? (19)
?You are listening to the voice of freedom . . .? (20) Was
said by a girl every night on the Movements own radio
station. There were only about 5 people who knew who this
woman was. The narrator and Gad were 2 of them. Gad
and the woman were lovers. The English wanted to get hold
of her identity just as bad as they wanted to know the Old
Man. John and David. People from the bible. The narrator
walks over to look in the mirror. He only sees eyes. He was
told ?Death . . . is a being without arms or legs or mouth or
head; it is all eyes. If you ever meet a creature with eyes
everywhere. You can be sure that it is death.? (22-23) The
story started with a child crying and now as the narrator
begins to sob because of what he has to do, the child stops
crying. Same age group as in Night. Terrorist by choice.
Jews fighting the group of people who helped save them
during the war. Held in prison camp during the war. Parents
died in camps. Stranger comes to door and walks right in.
Both stories have Jews fighting for freedom. Chapter 3 The
narrator believes that he has killed before in raids on camps
and convoys but he did not feel bad about planning the
raids. They were at night. The movements plan was to kill as
many English as possible. That was all. The Captain was
being held at a Professor of Language?s house. This is where
they held prisoners and people wanted by the police. There
was a dungeon built in the basement. When the dogs
searched the house they smelled him and came within inches
of him but there was a wall between them. For the first 6
weeks that the narrator was in Palestine, he was taught how
to use a variety of weapons and how to kill people
effectively with bare hands. And how to escape from any
prison. On the last day of training a masked man came to
talk to them. The narrator believes that it was the old man.
The first time that the narrator killed, he and 4 others raided
a camp where they surrounded a group of soldiers and then
began firing on them. He says that he will never forget that
night. (28) The second time that he killed, he and a group of
men went and set mines on a corner of a road. When 3
trucks came around the corner one of them hit a mine. The
other trucks stopped and the men got out of the back. They
were all killed. When he goes out to kill he calls it ?putting on
the gray colors of the SS.? The woman came home and she
stated the Old Man had been crying. (30) One night they
had an operation where they went onto an army base with
false documents that stated that they were supposed to pick
up Tommy guns and ammunition. They almost got away but
the man at the gate received a message that the order was
not in proper authority. They already had everything loaded
and they clubbed the gate guard over the head. The guard
woke up and started firing at the group. David got shot and
that is when he was captured. The narrator was not there
but Gad was the organizer of the operation and takes blame
for the capture. The narrator is used to losing friends every
day. ?This is war.? is used frequently. Like they are trying to
justify what they are doing. Escape from any prison. Training
came a little late. Losing lots of friends to war. Chapter 4
One man was reported on by a neighbor and he went into
an asylum where a friend worked. The police finally found
him and the doctor said that the man thought that he was
dead. They gave him 24 hours of interrogation and then they
took him back to the asylum. They slapped him, and got no
reaction, they also tried to make him eat, and he would not.
Playing dead had changed the mans hair colour from brown
to white. Gideon was called the Saint. Because he looked
like a Jewish saint and because he always remained
inconspicuous. His father was a rabbi. The woman was
saved by a head cold. The police brought a group of women
in and had an analyst listen to their voices. The voices were
compared to the voice on the radio. The woman had a cold
that day and her voice was not the same. She was quickly
eliminated from the suspects. (40) The narrator was once
saved by laughter. During his stay at a prison camp, he was
supposed to go outside in very cold weather in his rags. The
cell block was getting cleaned. He thought that the exposure
would kill him because he had a cold. When the cleaning
crew found him the leader grabbed him by the throat. The
narrators head swelled up and he looked funny. The leader
let him go and started to laugh uncontrollably. The man
forgot his intention to kill. Catherine was a 26-27 year old
that spoke little German and while the narrator was at a
summer camp in Normandy after the war. She was the only
person that could talk to him. He did not know French and
none of the other kids except Catherine could speak
German.(48) Catherine taught him what women did to men.
LOVE? They just happened to meet back up at Palestine.
On a walk one night Catherine told him that some of the
other girls spoke German. The narrator expressed that he
had nothing to say to them. She replied. ?You don?t have to
say anything, . . . all you have to do is love them.? (50) She
taught him about women and how and what love is. They
went under a tree every night and she taught him how to do
many things. She liked to make love to little boys who were
going to die. This is why she was there that night. Death
playing tricks. Chapter 5 The narrator has a dream where all
of the people in the room are people that he had known or
killed. He kept on asking people why they were all there but
no one would answer. The only person that answered was
the beggar who said ?This is a night of many faces.? (56)
The beggar told the narrator to go and talk to a child. The
child looked like himself at that age. The boy said that all of
the people were there to witness him, the narrator, become
a murderer. They are there to help with the execution
because they know the narrator cannot do it himself. The
narrators mother could only say ?Poor boy, poor boy.?
They told the man in the dungeon that he was going to die at
dawn and the man said that he was hungry. The narrator
thought that it was impossible for the man to be hungry. The
stomach tells a man when he is about to die and that same
stomach told the man that he was going to die. But he was
also hungry. The little boy wants the narrator to give the
prisoner the food. The narrator states that he does not want
to be alone with the prisoner. The boy states that all of the
people that are with him will go also. The little boy told the
narrator that the ghosts do not go to the synagogue at
midnight to pray, they go to eat. Gad ended up taking the
food down to the prisoner. The narrator admits to his friends
that he is afraid. (65) He said that he was afraid to laugh at
the man. The narrator tells how his mother said that there
will always be a golden goat beside him no matter how old
or rich he gets. The narrator is extremely worried. He says
that the goat has returned to him. He lost it just as he was
going into the prison camp. Ilana, the radio girl, sounds like
the narrators mother. ?He who has killed one man alone is a
killer.? (69) There were two different kinds of light in the
room. White, around the living. And black, around the
ghosts. The narrator approaches the ghost of his father and
asks him not to judge. He went to the ghost of his mother
and he starts to cry. He tells her that she did not give birth to
a murderer but to a soldier. (73) The narrator sees people
that were his friends that he did not know were dead. The
boy finally speaks and says that they are not there to judge.
They are there because the narrator is there. They have
been, and always will be with him. The beggar brushed
against the narrator and he realized that the beggar was the
prophet Elijah. Gad came from watching the Captain eat and
he said that the man was not hungry but he ate with good
appetite. Dawn is at 5 o?clock and it is now 4 o?clock. Gad
handed the narrator a revolver. The narrator asked if the
prisoner had laughed. Gad replied ?no? The stories that the
prisoner told were funny but Gad said that he did not laugh.
The narrator feels that David, the prisoner of the English, will
come to the rescue. The narrator wants to go down and get
to know who he is murdering. He wants to do this because
war is shooting into the night and hoping that the enemy has
been hit and is dead. You never know them though.(80) ?I
had never seen a hostage before.? (80) The narrator does
not want anyone, including the ghosts to go with him to the
dungeon. The Beggar states that the narrator has regained
his identity. The gun is symbolized as alive. (82) Trying to
convince himself that what he is about to do is the right thing.
Foreshadowing? Chapter 6 The cell was less stuffy than the
room that everyone was in. The hour is moving extremely
slow. ?Under other circumstances he might have been my
friend.? (85) The Captain knew that it was his killer. In the
bible Elisha, The name of the narrator, is the deciple of
Elijah, who has been the beggar. The Captain was about 40
and the executioner is 18. The Captain has a son about the
same age. The son does not look unhappy, but the Cap.
says that the narrator looks unhappy and has anxiety. To
block his feelings the narrator starts thinking about David.
The Captain asks for some paper for a letter that will be sent
to his son after the execution. The nazis referred to. (90) The
narrator knew an artist who had his right hand cut off by the
Nazis. The Captain had hands like the artist. The narrator
cannot hate the Captain, even though hate is needed for
murder. The narrator is going over what is going to happen
to David.(96) The Captain asks ?Why must you try to hate
me ….? (97) The narrator thinks that this is a good question
and says ?In order to give my action a meaning which may
somehow transcent it.? (98) It is now ten to 5. From this
point on every min. is talked about. Feelings etc. Three
minutes to five and the narrator promises that he will mail the
letter the same day. The Captain does not want a blindfold.
All of the ghosts enter the room with one minute to go. The
boy ghost says that this is the first time that he has seen an
execution. (100) The Captain is smiling. The narrator asks
why and the Captain says. ?I?m smiling . . . because all of a
sudden it has occurred to me that I don?t know why I am
dying.? (101) The captain?s last word was the name of the
narrator. The ghosts started to leave the cell and the Captain
walked beside the little boy. A child began to cry again. For
the first time the narrator saw a face in the darkness. It was
his own. Elisha restored breath to a boy, by laying on him,
who stopped breathing.