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Fear Of Death In Elie Wiesel's 'Night'

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Fear Of Death In Elie Wiesel's 'Night'
Night Synthesis Paper

While reading the book Night, I asked myself why are people were afraid of death. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, who is a Swiss-American psychiatrist, a pioneer in near-death studies, and the author of On Death and Dying, states in her article “On the Fear of Death,” that there are three psychological aspects that make people fear death. These psychological aspects are, unconsciously we are unable to imagine our own deaths, unconsciously we are unable to distinguish between a wish and deed, and we are trying to prevent death from happening while making death impersonal. We can see many examples within the book Night, by Elie Wiesel, who is a writer, professor, and Nobel Laureate. In this essay, I will be discussing the psychological aspects as to why people may fear death.

The first aspect is how we are unconsciously unable to imagine our own death. Due to our minds not being able to grasp the concept of death, we associate dying with a malicious intervention from an outside source. Dying in any other manner is inconceivable. An example of this is within the book Night. The Jews thought that they were going to die in a horrific manner by the SS. This would also explain Eliezer's thoughts and
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The three psychological aspects show that subconsciously we are always afraid of death. We are unable to understand the concept of death,and due to that we think our death will be a malicious intervention from an outside force. Unconsciously we are unable to distinguish between a wish and a deed. Lastly, we try to prolong our deaths for as long as possible, and dying has become impersonal and less dignifying. Since we are afraid of death, we have developed ways of bringing closure when a loved one dies by either praying, burying someone's belonging with them, or grieving in our own way. Both Elizabeth's article and the book Night show that death is inevitable and will happen even if you are

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