"A desolating grief is now born in me, like certain barely remembered pains of one's early infancy. It is pain in its pure state, not tempered by a sense of reality and by the intrusion of extraneous circumstances, a pain like that which makes children cry; and it is better for me to swim once again up to the surface, but this time I deliberately open my eyes to have a guarantee in front of me of being effectively awake."
.
In the book, Primo Levi describes the night; the sleeps that were uncomfortable, and the terrible nightmares of the blissful outside world. For me, I understand the fears of the night. Although it is quite shameful of me to admit it, I still fear the darkness. Being alone in the dark allows my mind to walk around endlessly, bringing back memories of all the scary movies I had watched in my lifetime (which isn't that many!). However, there are times when I am in the mood to stay up at night, with all the lights off. This is when I want to allow my mind to wander off. In a way, I think I have the ability to conquer night. When my mind begins to wander when I don't want to, I just shut it off and try to force myself to go to sleep. Eventually, I end up falling asleep and I no longer have to fear for unpleasant memories. When I'm in the mood to think deeply, I can allow the night to carry my thoughts on, until I am ready to shut them again. Unfortunately, while in Auschwitz, Primo Levi could not control the night. Auschwitz had made everyone exhausted and devastated that no one had the strength to conquer the darkness, and use the darkness to their advantage. When I think of what I would have felt like if I was left alone every night, and I couldn't control the straying of my thoughts, I think I would have gone crazy. Although thinking is good, some thoughts in my head brought horror, and to imagine facing that horror every night............ It would have been unbearable for me.
No comments:
Post a Comment