The Melody of Death
In one’s deepest despair, holding onto anything with familiarity helps to relieve the pain of the past, present, and future. Such is the relationship with Juliek and his violin. Music has a way of communicating what words cannot. When Elie hears Juliek’s violin in the dark of night, “it was as if Juliek’s soul had become his bow. He was playing his life” (Wiesel 95). All of Juliek’s pent-up emotions flow from the strings of his beloved violin. He plays what all of the Jews are feeling, and this brief reprieve from the atrocities they have been subjected to is welcome. Elie understands that Juliek’s “whole being was gliding over the strings. His unfulfilled hopes. His charred past, his extinguished future” (Wiesel 95). Playing Beethoven is Juliek’s way of “bidding farewell to an audience of dying men” (Wiesel 95). What else does he have that he could possibly offer them? His music acts as a reminder of a better, more humane time in their lives—when each of them had worth, love, and joy in their lives—all of which have been stripped from them. Even so, the Germans are not able to silence his last farewell to his comrades. When the fingers that guide the bow across the violin’s strings die, so too does the violin—“trampled, an eerily poignant little corpse” (Wiesel 95). The darkness that was lit for a few brief moments by Juliek’s playing returns with a vengeance, but Juliek’s soul—a soul that was strong enough to disengage him from the nightmare he had been living—travels towards a place of peace.
Commentary: This is also one of my later papers and you can see how different it is from my first paper. This is one of my favorite papers to write.
In one’s deepest despair, holding onto anything with familiarity helps to relieve the pain of the past, present, and future. Such is the relationship with Juliek and his violin. Music has a way of communicating what words cannot. When Elie hears Juliek’s violin in the dark of night, “it was as if Juliek’s soul had become his bow. He was playing his life” (Wiesel 95). All of Juliek’s pent-up emotions flow from the strings of his beloved violin. He plays what all of the Jews are feeling, and this brief reprieve from the atrocities they have been subjected to is welcome. Elie understands that Juliek’s “whole being was gliding over the strings. His unfulfilled hopes. His charred past, his extinguished future” (Wiesel 95). Playing Beethoven is Juliek’s way of “bidding farewell to an audience of dying men” (Wiesel 95). What else does he have that he could possibly offer them? His music acts as a reminder of a better, more humane time in their lives—when each of them had worth, love, and joy in their lives—all of which have been stripped from them. Even so, the Germans are not able to silence his last farewell to his comrades. When the fingers that guide the bow across the violin’s strings die, so too does the violin—“trampled, an eerily poignant little corpse” (Wiesel 95). The darkness that was lit for a few brief moments by Juliek’s playing returns with a vengeance, but Juliek’s soul—a soul that was strong enough to disengage him from the nightmare he had been living—travels towards a place of peace.
Commentary: This is also one of my later papers and you can see how different it is from my first paper. This is one of my favorite papers to write.