In Response to Death

C.S. Lewis once said, “the death of a beloved is an amputation.” Losing a loved one can be a very painful and traumatic experience. However, as the circumstances are widely varying, people cope with these significant losses by reacting differently. In the excerpt from the memoir Night, Elie Wiesel describes his experience in a concentration camp as well as his reactions to his father’s impending death. He resorts to accepting this reality days before the death, however he still feels guilty for lack of stronger emotion.. In J.D. Salinger’s except from Catcher in the Rye, the narrator Holden Caulfield depicts a more intense reaction to his brother Allie’s death, through anger and shock. Similarly, Holden and Elie both acknowledge their extreme and abnormal reactions to death. However, Wiesel knew about his father’s imminent death and responds with acceptance, guilt, and relief whereas Holden is shocked and responds to Allie’s death with anger.

Looking back at his father’s death, Elie accepts his death but still feels ashamed yet relieved. When Elie sees the physical deterioration of his father’s body, he tried to “etch his bloody, broken face into [Elie’s] mind.” The word “etch” suggests Elie knows about the imminent death of his father. Elie understands that his father’s condition will only worsen, and therefore tries to carve his face to remember his father forever in his memory . When Elie wakes up the next day only to find his father’s body taken to the crematorium, it “pain[s]” him that he is “out of tears.” Elie is mentally and physically exhausted from trying to survive the concentration camp. Even though he acknowledges his humanity and feelings being stripped away from to the horrors of concentration camp, Elie still feels guilty for not feeling more or crying. He is tired and burdened with his own survival, so he has no strength to cry nor mourn for his father. When he searches for his reaction to his father’s death, he might have found something like: “free at last.” The word “free” implies that Elie is held back by his father and the phrase “at last” suggests that Elie has been feeling this way for a long time. When his father passes away, Elie feels relieved because he is free from the burden of taking care of his father, and now he is free to fight only for his own survival. Reminiscing this tragic memory, Elie feels acceptance towards his father’s death but also feels guilty and a sense of relief.

In contrast to the numb reaction of Elie’s father’s death, Holden feels anger and shock towards Allie’s death. When he hears about the news, he breaks “all the windows.” This act of temper suggests that Holden protests Allie’s cruel and incomprehensible fate, and as a reaction to this frustration, he commits dangerous actions to project his anger. The rage that Holden feels consumes him and causes him to damage something while hurting himself