Relent

While reading this novel, one part really stood out for me. Which was the part when Elie finally saw himself in a mirror after the tragic experiences he has been put through, Elie says, “One day I was able to get up, after gathering all my strength. I wanted to see myself in the mirror hanging on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto.
From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me.
The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me.”

Elie indicates that even though he has survived the war physically, he is essentially dead, his soul killed by the sufferings he had experienced. Yet, when Elie says, “the look in his eyes, as he stared into mine,” he indicates a detachment between himself and the corpse. His language, too, indicates a detachment between his sense of self and his identity as a Holocaust victim—as if he has become two distinct beings. The corpse-image reminds him how much he has suffered and how much of himself—his faith in God, his innocence, his faith in mankind, his father, his mother, his sister—has been killed in the camps. At the same time, he manages to separate himself from this empty shell. The image of the corpse will always stay with him, but he has found a sense of identity that will endure beyond the Holocaust. As dark as this passage is, its message is partially hopeful. Elie survives beyond the horrible suffering he endured by separating himself from it, casting it aside so he can remember, but not continue to feel, the horror.