Night and MOV Compare/Contrast

After reading both ‘Night’ by Elie Wiesel and ‘The Merchant of Venice’ by William Shakespeare I can say that I have barely found any similarities at all. Yes, I know that both the novel and the play are based around the Jews but, that’s really all I saw similarity wise.
Night, to me, was a very influential story of a boys struggle for life and religion in a concentration camp. He went through so much pain and tragedy; Losing his mother, sister, and finally father all in the process of nearly losing himself to all the evil surrounding him. Frankly, I find it to be an amazing thing how so many managed to pull through the Holocaust and then be able to bring back those horrid memories [like Elie did] in order to tell the world his story, along with the story of thousands of other innocent people.
The Merchant of Venice, on the other hand, was just a play that was meant to be humorous about the ‘evil, greedy jew’, Shylock. He was just a banker, who was completely obsessed with his ducats. Which was sort of funny to me considering the fact that today, many of the stereotypes about Jews were being used way back in the time of Shakespeare. For example, the ‘greedy Jew’ thing; obviously it was a common belief in Shakespeare’s time to think Jews were greedy. In MOV Shylock as made out as being this hardcore penny pincher who really had no other worries in the world. For example, when Jessica ran away, he wasn’t upset by the fact that this one and only daughter ran away from him. He was worried about losing the large sum of ducats she took with her and also the many jewels upon her body. That really does show that Shakespeare was trying to make him seem like some terrible person. But in relation to the modern day, many people still do see Jews as penny-pinching, greedy people. But, it’s more in a joking way. Everyday around me I hear some sort of Jew joke AT LEAST 10 times a day. “Oh, you Jew” “Hey look, a penny, Go get it you Jew”. Things like that. But, they’re never meant to harm, and usually the person that its directed at starts to crack up and play along with it.
What I found to be really interesting about both the writings was that each took a different side. Elie wrote about himself [and the other Jews] from a very innocent perspective [which they have a right to have. They were all completely innocent.] In contrast, the Merchant of Venice was written in a very.. ‘finger-pointing’ sort of way. You know? I just found the play to be quite annoying. There was also so much going on in it. There were what, two love stories? All on top of Shylock being a greedy cruel person? It just really started to annoy me. But, most of the time when I read Shakespeare I really cannot stand it. There is always way too much going on.
So, overall, I would have to say that I enjoyed Night much more than The Merchant of Venice. Night was a better suited piece of literature for me. There is so much detail and I can actually understand the language that Elie used when writing the book. Detail is one thing I truly enjoy when reading a novel and there was just a lot of it in Night. There was also this unrelenting sensation that I got when reading night. The words seeped down, deep into my body. When I read something and that happens, I’ve found a truly amazing piece of work.