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In all cases we have filmed the best available copy. University Micrcxilms International 300 N. ZEEB RD„ ANN ARBOR, Ml 48106 8207568 FRENCH, ELLEN MERRITT BROWN ARCHETYPE AND METAPHOR: AN APPROACH TO THE EARLY NOVELS OF ELIE WIESEL Middle Tennessee State University D.A 1981 University Microfilms International300 N . Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, M I 48106 Copyright by French, Ellen Merritt Brown All Rights Reserved Archetype and Metaphor: An Approach to the Early Novels of Elie Wiesel Ellen Brown French A dissertation presented to the Graduate Faculty of Middle Tennessee State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Arts December, 1981 Archetype and Metaphor: An Approach to the Early Novels of Elie Wiesel APPROVED: Graduate Committee: Major Professor Committee Member tuL. %. % £ £ « J L Head of thq^Department of English ichool Abstract Archetype and Metaphor: An Approach to the Early Novels of Elie Wiesel by Ellen Brown French This dissertation explores the development of Elie Wiesel's art as seen in his early novels. Since the late 1950's when the publication of Night first brought Wiesel to the attention of critics, his work has continued to com­ mand the respect of international critics and scholars. In fact, Wiesel has emerged in the United States as a leading spokesman for the survivors of the Holocaust, espousing a point of view that has wide appeal for its philosophical and humanitarian bases. The present study approaches Night, Dawn, and The Accident as a trilogy linked by a single structural pattern of development, a single protagonist, and a single metaphoric and symbolic system. The study consists of four chapters. Chapter I examines the forces that shaped Elie Wiesel and influenced his aesthetic and moral perspectives. It discusses the bases for his need to communicate his insights into the contemporary Jewish experience. Ellen Brown French Chapter II traces the development of the archetypal pattern that frames the story of Wiesel's hero, Eliezer, as he moves from childhood to manhood. The study reveals the traditional movement of the hero through the monomythic passages of life leading from innocence to an encounter with radical evil to emergence as a man who has left illusion behind him to embrace life as it is. Chapter III examines the metaphoric and symbolic system through which the archetypal stages of the monomyth are expressed. Wiesel develops a cluster of carefully modulated images, symbols, and metaphors that provide narrative and dramatic unity and that add a further dimension to the story of Eliezer. In addition to the recurring metaphors and symbols, Wiesel includes episodic symbols that illuminate the Jewish values of the hero. Chapter IV confirms the unity of Wiesel's art with his philosophical position. Wiesel has wedded experience to myth and has conveyed his vision of the meaning of that experience in metaphor and symbol. The story of Eliezer is a significant addition to contemporary letters and merits a place in the enduring literature of the Western World. Acknowledgements I wish to thank Dr. William J. Connelly for his guidance and encouragement in the preparation of this study. Also, I am grateful to Dr. John McRay, who introduced me to the work of Elie Wiesel. Above all, I thank my husband, Chancel, whose unfailing support has made this project possible. ii Table of Contents Chapter Page I. Introduction: Wiesel's Personal Background, His Philosophic Outlook and His W o r k ................................. 1 II. The Mythic Narrative: A Reading of the Trilogy ............................... 15 III. Metaphor and Symbol in the Trilogy ........... 69 IV. Conclusion ........................................ 112 Works Consulted .......................................... 118 iii Chapter I Introduction: Wiesel's Personal Background, His Philosophic Outlook, and His Work The central theme of contemporary European Jewish literature is the havoc wrought by World War II, specifi­ cally the suffering imposed by Nazi Germany in its effort to attain Teutonic racial purity, an imposition that fell with particular severity on European Jews, six million of whom perished. Because of the enormous loss of life in the Jewish community— and because of the specific manner in which many Jews died— the experience has been called the Holocaust, a word that denotes destruction by fire and that connotes a sacrificial burnt offering. Journalists and historians have focused their attention on the Holocaust, seeking to document all aspects of the events that tran­ spired. Philosophers have probed for the meaning behind the events, and novelists have recreated the horrors of the Holocaust in their fiction. Numerous survivors have written personal memoirs to bear witness to the truth as they knew it and to keep faith with those who perished. One of these survivors with a story to tell— with many stories to tell— is Elie Wiesel. 1 2 Eliezer Wiesel was born into the home of observant Jews, Shlomo Elisha and Sara Feig Wiesel, on September 30, 1928. He had two older sisters, Hilda and Beatrice, and was later to have another sister, Tzipora. The Wiesels lived in Sighet, a small town in northern Rumania in the province of Transylvania. Elie attended school in Sighet and later went to high school in Debreczen as an external student, which is to say that he studied at home and went to Debreczen once a year to take the examinations. "That means," he says, "I really made an effort only one month a year, the last month of the exams. Otherwise, I spent some ten or twelve hours a day studying Torah."1 wiesel's mother was a cultivated woman, the daughter of a Hasidic rabbi. His father believed not only in traditional Jewish learning but also in the value of modern studies, and he insisted on a secular education for his son that included psychology and modern Hebrew. Enclosed in his small world, Elie seems scarcely to have been aware of the larger world or of the political events that were to have such a profound effect on his life. While Wiesel was still a small boy, the balance of power in Europe shifted following the German-Russian rap­ prochement in August, 1939. Rumania lost large sections ^ Harry James Cargas, ed., Harry James Cargas in Conversation with Elie Wiesel (Paramus, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1976), p. 67. 3 of territory to its neighbors, for "Germany and Italy, acting as arbiters, in the Vienna award of 1940 gave . a part of Transylvania to Hungary."2 For a few years the government of Hungary protected its Jewish population, but when a strong collaborationist government came to power in 1944 under the leadership of General Dome Sztojay, the "Germans did much as they wished . and they rounded up Hungary's Jews, except for those in the capital, and sent them to forced labour camps or to gas chambers."3 The tragic events that followed for the Jews of Sighet form the basis for Wiesel's novel Night and affect all of his sub­ sequent fiction. Wiesel writes from the perspective of one who has himself passed through the fire, who has grappled with the problems of post-Holocaust adjustment, and who has found a way to live again. He sees himself as an authentic man, an authentic Jew, one who, in the words of Robert G. Olson, has arrived at "an accurate appraisal of the human condition. As such, Wiesel accepts his past and, as he says, "assumes the entire destiny of . [his] people."5 in this respect 2 Charles and Barbara Jelavich, The Balkans (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1965), p. 102. 3 C[arlile] Atylmer] M[acartney], "Hungary, History of," The New Encyclopaedia Britannica: Macropaedia, 1974 ed. ^ An Introduction to Existentialism (New York: Dover Publications, 1962), p. 134. 5 Conversation, p. 8. 4 Wiesel agrees with the position of his fellow Jew, Martin Buber, who says: "In the destiny of an authentic person, the destiny of his people is gathered up."6 Wiesel's destiny as a Jew and as a writer is that of a witness- messenger.