Partner Macbeth Pre Discussion

Partner: Zak
- Is evil ingrained in human nature? That is, are some people just “born evil,” or is evil caused by circumstance or environment? 

We believe that evil is caused by circumstance and environment, because babies are born innocent, and lack the knowledge about evil actions. One's mind develops according to their environment during their childhood. As they grow up, they experience and perceive the different levels of evil that are embedded in this world. For example, if a person grows up in an abusive family, the chances of them turning out to be abusive as well is greatly increased. A child brought up to be kind hearted, with no reasons to display acts of evil is the opposite. Their chances of turning evil are none. In, conclusion, people are not born evil but they are influenced at a young age. Being raised poorly in an unhealthy environment causes evil.

Are our lives determined by fate, or by the acts of our free will? 

Our lives are determined by free will. There is always a choice in anything you do. People don't have one fate in their life, they are able to change their life and make their own path. Some people wait for their fate when they could be living their life with free will. For example, if an athlete wants to make it to the pros, they should work their hardest to make sure they make it. Leaving it to fate stops them from working hard. In conclusion, people don't have one fate. Their choices in life sculpt their path.

Is redemption truly possible? That is, is it possible to commit an act of genuine evil and truly recover from it? 

No,  we don't believe that redemption is truly possible, because when a person commits an act of genuine evil, it stays with them and haunts them forever. Even if they receive forgiveness from the people that they hurt from their actions, they can never truly forgive themselves. What they can do is make peace with their decision and understand that the past is in the past, and there is nothing that they can do to change it. People can try to make up for their actions by doing good deeds and  being a better person, but the truth is, that act of evil will have changed their lives forever. We don't believe that anyone can ever fully recover from an act of genuine evil. 

Is it possible to admire or respect a person whom you know has committed acts of genuine evil? 

Yes, it is possible to admire or respect a person whom you know has committed acts of genuine evil . Acts of evil don't necessarily define who a person is. A person can have a major setback in their life, caused by a bad decision, and then turn around and work towards the greater good for the rest of their life, in an attempt to redeem themselves. That is a person who'd we both admire and respect, because it shows perseverance and the willingness to change, which is always tough. 

Do “the ends justify the means”? That is, if one uses morally evil methods to acquire a goal, is that goal forever tainted or polluted by the actions one has taken to achieve it? 

Night Final Exercise

Write 2 thesis statements for which you could write well-supported literary analysis essays. Remember when analyzing the literature we are always trying to determine the meaning of the literature. It is not a summary or you repeating what is already known. So in the thesis you need to tell us something that you can prove through evidence from the book. You need to write two thesis statements based off these literary elements:

Theme: The book "Night" by Elie Wiesel portrays that when people are presented with the constant threat of death, they lose their morals and their ability of being a decent human being. 

• “Once again, the young men bound and gagged her. When they actually struck her, people shouted their approval.” (pg. 26)

• “The three veterans, with needles inter hands, engraved a number on our left arms. I became A-7713. From then on, I had no other name.” (pg. 39)

• “I heard the pounding of my heart. The thousands of people who died daily in Auschwitz and Birkenau, in the crematoria, no longer troubled me.” (pg. 62)

• “One day when we had come to a stop, a worker took a piece of bread out of his bag and threw it into a wagon. There was a stampede. Dozens of starving men fought desperately over a few crumbs. The worker watched the spectacle with great interest. In the wagon where the bread had landed, a battle had ensued. Men were hurling themselves against each other, trampling, tearing at and mauling each other.” (pg. 100-101)

Character: The inhumane acts of the Holocaust caused many people to lose their basic human qualities,  but in the book "Night", Elie Wiesel shows that hope and compassion will eventually get one through even the most seemingly hopeless of situations that life may present. 

• - “Don’t lose hope… Have faith in life, a thousand times fate… Help each other. That is the only way to survive.” (pg. 41)
• - “‘Don’t be afraid,’ he said. ‘Everything will be alright.’... Every one of his words was healing and every glance of his carried a message of hope.” (pg. 79)

- "My God, Lord of the Universe, give me strength never to do what Rabbi Eliahou's son has done." (pg 87) 
- "I tightened my grip on my father's hand. The old, familiar fear: not to lose him"

Dialectical Journal

1) Dehumanization- The act of treating an individual as if they are not a human being.
2) The prisoners no longer consider other people their friends and family. For example, when the guards throw a piece of bread into the train, one of the older prisoners manages to get it and sneak it into his shirt. When the prisoner's son sees this, he jumps on top of his father and ends up beating him to death. They live by the saying "every man for himself" and will kill and fight other people for just a small piece of food.
3) The first change that Eliezer noticed when at the camps was that he was losing his emotions. When his father was harshly beaten right in front of him, he couldn't help but just watch silently. Eliezer also begins to think negative thoughts about his father, such as how he'd be better off if his father was dead, but immediately regrets it. He prays for the strength to keep those thoughts out of his mind, and to not be like some of the other prisoners that he saw.

Quotes:
"Without passion, without haste, they slaughtered their prisoners." (pg. 4)

"I became A-7713 ... I had no other name." (pg. 39)

"I now took little interest in anything except my daily plate of soup and my crust of stale brad. Bread, soup - these were my whole life." (pg. 50)

"Dozens of starving men fought each other to the death for a few crumbs." (pg. 95)

Night Quiz

1) When the prisoners first enter the camp, they are allowed to take a hot shower. However, they were to leave their clothes in the other block, since they were promised new ones. The prisoners had to remove all of their clothing and their personal items. Then, the veterans came around and engraved numbers into the prisoners with needles. Those numbers were what the prisoners would be identified by, and what the Germans would use to evaluate those that were weak and the ones that were strong.

2) The one thing that remains the same at Birkenau is their bell schedules. Although they encountered many different guards, some that seemed surprisingly humane, some that they were terrified of, different rations of food, and different labor jobs, they always had a bell schedule. The bells rang for when it was time for roll call, meal times, and when to go to bed. Elie said that he hated the bells, and  when he pictured a better world, it was one with no bells.

3) One of the most unknown things that the prisoners had to encounter was the selections. They didn't know when the selections were, or if they would be healthy enough to pass. At one point, Elie's father didn't think that he was healthy enough to pass, so he gives Elie his knife and spoon, which he thought would be useful. If tbey wrote your number down, you would be killed. The prisoners were always glancing at the guards, praying that they would pass the selection. Another thing that was unknown to the prisoners was when or if they would be transeferred to a new camp, and if that camp would be worse than the previous one. For example, the Auschwitz canp was one of the better ones, where the labor wasn't that bad, and they got bigger portions of food. However, when they were sent to Buna, the guards were mean, and the work was harder.

4) At Auschwitz, the guards were relatively nice, and treated the prisoners like actual humans. They were given new clothes, a wash basin, and bigger food rations. Elie said that he heard the guard speak the first "human words" since being at the camps. However, at Buna, they encountered a guard named Idek. Idek had little fits of frenzy, and no one wanted to get in his way when he had one. When Elie got in his way, he was struck repeatedly, until he was covered in blood. When Elie's father couldn't keep up with his work, Idek beat him with an iron bar. After seeing Idek with a girl, Elie was whipped 25 times for what he witnessed. Idek tried to look for little things that he could use against the prisoners, so he could beat them up.

Dialectical Journal

      Critical Stance: Discuss the contrast between the panic of the Jews with EACH NEW decree or action of the government and their attempts to reassure themselves and to adjust to each new infringement on their freedom.When Moshe the Beadle came back after being sent off for being a foreign Jew, he tried to warn everybody about the Gestapo slaughtering people and using babies as targeting practice, but all the Jews just considered him to be a mad man. They just couldn't understand how people could do that kind of acts to other human beings. When the government first put their plans in action to relocate all of the Jews, many of them just assumed that they were being sent off to work for factories. Also, when everybody was give the gold star to wear, their thoughts were that it doesn't kill you, so it's not that big of a deal. They even considered themselves pretty well off when they were fenced in with barbed wire. They liked the idea of living among fellow Jews, like their own little community. When nobody would tell them where they were being deported to, they made up optimistic stories to help pass time and keep them from thinking about what else could possibly happen. Dialectical Journal Entries: 1) "There are a thousand and one gates leading into the orchard of mystical truth. Ewilvery human being has his own gate. We must never make the mistake of wanting to enter the orchard by any gate but our own. To do this is dangerous for the one who entered and also for those who are already there." - Moshe the Beadle (page 3 paragraph 4)
This quote shows the Moshe the Beadle has very strong values and is a religious man. It means that some people in your life will be of big help, but others can be an obstacle. You should be careful about who you trust. 

2)"Without passion, without haste, they slaughtered their prisoners. Each one had to go up to the hole and present his neck. Babies were thrown up in the air and the machine gunners used them as targets." (page 4 lines 20-23)Moshe the Beadle tried to warn the Jews about the actions that were being done to the foreign Jews, but nobody believed him. This was the beginning of the nightmare for anyone of the Jewish race. 

3) "My father was crying. It was the first time I saw him cry. I had never thought it possible. As for my mother, she was walking, her face a mask, without a word, deep in thought. I looked at my little sister, Tzipora, her blond hair neatly combed, her red coat over her arm: a little girl of seven. On her back a bag too heavy for her. She was clenching her teeth; she already knew it was useless to complain. Here and there, the police were lashing out with their clubs. "Faster!" I had no strength left. The journey had just begun and I already felt so weak. 
During this  time period, people had a hard time understanding why this was happening to them. They didn't do anything wrong, yet they were forced to leave everything behind and relocate to an unknown place. It was hard on everyone, and one by one people were slowly breaking. 

4)"- "There was no floor. a roof and four walls. Our feet sank into the mud." (page 35)
This quote gives a brief description of what life was like in  the concentration camps. It was pretty much worse than a prison, and their living conditions were harsh. 

5) "What a shame, a shame that you did not go with your mother … I saw many children your age go with their mothers …"
Elie's father didn't want to see his son suffer and go through the things that he knew could happen. If Elie went with his mother, he'd probably be safer, and his father wouldn't have to see his pain.

The Holocaust (partner Kaela)

      The word "Holocaust" means the destruction or slaughter on a mass scale, specifically by fire. Heirnrich Heine, a German poet, wrote "Where one burns books, one will, in the end, burn people." Since the German's believed that they were superior to the Jewish people, they wanted to kill all of them, and keep only the people that were blonde-haired and blue eyed. The Holocaust was a devastating event in which millions of people died, in an attempt to purify Germany's population. "A large population of the Jewish people were sent to labor camps, and approximately 12,000 Jews were gassed and killed everyday." Majority of the Jews did nothing wrong, yet they were killed for something that they had no control over. Just because a dictator believed that their race was not important, all of the Jews were in constant danger, and had to suffer harsh punishments and torture. The Holocaust was an inhumane act, which nearly wiped out the entire Jewish population.

      Just the meaning of the name Holocaust, is just a glimpse of what happened in the Jewish concentration camps. It comes from the greek word "Holos"( whole) and costs (burned). The holocaust was the mass murder of about 6 million jews. Hitler, the dictator at the time believed that Germans was a superior than any other race. There were many concetration camps in Poland including Chelmno, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdenek, and Auschwitz - Birkenau. The Germans tried to keep these camps a secret but due to large amount of killings it was very hard to do so. He also forced them on the front line of war, ultimately causing death. As Champetier de Ribes, the French Prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials explained, “This [was] a crime so monstrous, so undreamt of in history … that the term ‘genocide’ has had to be coined to define it.”  this crime was very inhumane, as it a an act of racism genocide, due to Hitler not liking a certain race. Kity Hart-Moxon, a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau, remembers the high value placed on food, and so much wanting to survive the camp. She would sometimes take the piece of bread from the body of someone who had died during the night"  This explains the harsh conditions that the jews had no choice to encounter, If the german Nazi's didn't kill them, the lack of food causing starvation did. Overall the jewish people had received torture for their beliefs for no reason and that the dictator at the time believed that another race was more important.

http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/the-holocaust
https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005143

Introductory Assignment for Night

http://www.msf.org/en/article/united-states-suspension-us-refugee-resettlement-endangers-people-fleeing-war-zones

Due to the recent election results, our new president Donald Trump has made an executive order suspending refugees from coming into America. The ones mostly affected by the ban includes people Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen. This ban will keep refugees in war zones. This ban is to support the idea of protecting America against Terrorism. This ban is unjust and inhumane to those refugees trying to seek a better life for them and their families."Every day our teams on the ground see people desperately seeking safety at closed borders and in war zones from which they cannot flee," said Jason Cone, executive director of MSF USA. Due to this ban many people who are just seeking a more fit life can not do so. This ban is unjust and inhumane to those refugees trying to seek a better life for them and their families. In the predicament that most Refugees are in they are trying to escape the types of conflict in their home lands.
"Refugees are mothers and fathers and children who want what we all want: a safe place to live their lives, free from war and persecution," Cone said. " many are trying to remove the ban as it is an exclusion of race. This is a example of inhumanity because Trump has no care for the refugees as whom he has put a stereotype on. 

https://stopgenocidenow.org/2016/12/20/listen-alarm-bells
Many countries come to the aid of others when they are in a crisis. "In Aleppo, South Sudan, 70% of the women in the Civilian Protection Camps have reported being raped, and 78% have been forced to watch violent sexual attacks." Rape is being used as a weapon of war, and these inhumane acts need to come to an end. When people do these kinds of actions, they are not thinking about how the person on the receiving end will be affected. "Civilians are being slaughtered, and children are being forced into the roles of child soldiers." The death rates in South Sudan are on the rise, and the only option that the citizens have is to flee their country, and leave everything behind. It is unjust for another country to kill thousands of people a day, just because of a disagreement. Other countries need to start paying more attention to the genocide that is happening in Aleppo, and help to improve their situation.