In this chapter, Wiesel talks a bit about his shoes
and gold tooth, and throughout the chapter he tries to keep both as he refuses
a deal for his shoes and finds a way to avoid the dentist. Wiesel states that
he wanted to keep the tooth in case he could use in an emergency for food, but
along with the shoes, I feel like he tried so hard to keep both because they
were some of the last items he still had from his previous life. They served as
reminders of a time that was better, and by taking them away, Wiesel would be
losing just that much more of his humanity because he would truly have almost
nothing that belonged to him at that point.
I agree Eric, maybe he held on to those things because they gave him a small measure of control over his life. In the end he lost those material things and he lost something even more important: hope.
ReplyDeleteAs I was reading the chapter, I also interpreted the tooth and shoes to be reminder of the life that he had. The tooth and shoes were more than materialistic items. They represented "better times" and were a way for Elie to still have hope in something more than a concentration camp.
ReplyDeleteWhen I read this I didn't think of the gold tooth and shoes as a way to hold on to his past. I thought of it as an object he kept because he felt like a human being with them since that's practically all he had since they took him away from his home previously. Its a very interesting point Erick, and I do agree that this may also be a reason why he didn't want to give them up.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete