Original Text: "Night" by Elie Weisel
“I had not seen myself since the ghetto. From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me. The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me.” (Pg.115) After all the horror he has undergone, Elie gets his first chance to look at himself in the mirror after being transferred to a hospital because of food poisoning. He goes on describing what he saw looking at his own reflection; “A corpse was contemplating me,” the value in this word choice tells a great deal in how Elie felt looking in the mirror. He saw “a corpse,” a dead man, who had life drained out of him. He no longer felt as if he was looking at himself, but rather a stranger. There becomes a separation between Elie himself and the corpse in the mirror. The corpse symbolizes everything he went through; including watching children being burnt, his father dying, watching people fight over food, people being hung, and faith being lost. Yet, Elie still manages to make a separation between the two. The last line distinguishes that although he had lost and suffered so much, he will manage to live beyond the Holocaust, but still never forget it.
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Revised Text:
“I had not seen myself since the ghetto. From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me. The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me.” (Pg.115)
After all the horror he has undergone, Elie gets his first chance to look at himself in a mirror after being transferred to a hospital because of food poisoning. He goes on to describe what he saw looking at his own reflection, “A corpse was contemplating me.” The value in this word choice tells a great deal about how Elie felt looking into the mirror. He saw “a corpse,” a dead man who had his life drained out of him. He no longer felt as if he were looking at himself, but rather at a stranger. There becomes a separation between Elie himself and the corpse in the mirror.
The corpse symbolizes everything he went through, including; watching children being burnt, his father dying, watching people fight over food, people being hung, and faith being lost. Yet, Elie still manages to make a separation between the two. The last line distinguishes that, although he had lost and suffered so much, he will manage to live beyond the Holocaust, but still never forget it.
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