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Dialogues@RU is published
annually
by the
Writing Program at
Rutgers, The State
University of New Jersey
Volume 4
Fall 2005
Reshaping the Autobiographical Self:
Elie Wiesel's Night -
Page 1
By Jennifer Flynn
While autobiographies are most simply defined as literary representations of their authors' life histories, the genre as a whole offers vast, complex potential for writers and readers alike. In whatever mode or style an author chooses to depict his life ¾ straightforwardly, metaphorically or even deceptively - his final product is an intimate one, irreproducible by any other hand. In theory, the author reflects upon the past, and relates his inner narrative - the story only he knows. However, in practice, consciously misleading self-portraits have appeared in the genre since its inception. And even without conscious efforts to misinform or exaggerate, what writer perceives his life impartially? What person, for that matter, wholly understands his nature or motives, and would be willing to admit them all uncensored? Autobiography, then, is an author's attempt to portray and explain his life, to make sense of both the past and present from his perspective, regardless of historical accuracy.
With this definition in mind, how does a reader come to terms with two dissimilar autobiographies produced by a single author? This issue emerges from the works of Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, a Nobel Peace Prize recipient and author of two strikingly different personal narratives. In 1954, Wiesel wrote a memoir in Yiddish, his native language, titled Un di Velt Hot Geshvign (And the World Kept Silent) , published two years later as one volume of a larger series about Polish Jews (Seidman 4). In 1958, four years after completing this original text, Wiesel published Night , a new autobiography in French, the language of his post-Holocaust home. This latter work is not a translation, but a distinct text. In fact, their dissimilarities are so substantial, they have created problems for literary scholars. Among them is Naomi Seidman, professor of Jewish Culture at Berkeley College 's Graduate Theological Union . In her essay, "Elie Wiesel and the Scandal of Jewish Rage," Seidman asserts that the contrast of the works results from Wiesel's proximity to his respective audiences. She contends that the Yiddish version, in addressing a Jewish audience, portrays a certain hostility that Wiesel could not comfortably reveal to a French-speaking and predominantly Christian audience. While Seidman's interpretation is persuasive, her tightly-focused analysis ignores critical aspects of the autobiographical genre and Wiesel's transformation of that form that valuably complicate an understanding of Night . Because she is primarily concerned with issues of content such as word choice and phrasing that differ from text to text, Seidman neglects features of structure such as the inclusion of novelistic devices that shed light on Wiesel's motives. An analysis of construction reveals anger in the French text, but not exactly as it appears in the Yiddish. This is the result of Wiesel's developing writing skill that enabled him to break from the testimonial formula of his time to create an original form of expression. By infusing his autobiography with literary elements traditionally reserved for novels, Wiesel fashioned a new artistic form ¾ the autobiographical Holocaust novel. In the process, he discovered subtler, yet more evocative methods of expression than were offered by Holocaust survivors in the eyewitness accounts that preceded Night , including his own Yiddish text. For these reasons, his autobiographies differ greatly, and the French work emerges as the superior example of Wiesel's literary power.