Kevin Conroy once said, “Everyone is handed adversity in life. No one’s journey is easy. It’s how they handle it that makes people unique. ” Dictionary. com defines adversity as “adversity n. adverse or unfavorable fortune or fate; a condition marked by misfortune, calamity, or distress. ” Adversity is something that everyone will experience at some point in his life; however, some people face greater adversities than others. Morrie Schwartz and Elie Wiesel are two men that faced two of the greatest adversities that this world knows.
Elie is a survivor of Adolf Hitler’s destruction of the Holocaust, and Morrie Schwartz was a simple man who lost a battle to Lou Gehrig’s disease, or ALS. Both of these men’s lives have been captured in best-selling novels that face adversity head on. Both novels approach the theme of adversity from faith, handle adversity in different ways, and compare, yet contrast from the adversity that they face. Adversity can be approached a variety of ways, but in the novel Night and Tuesdays with Morrie, adversity is approached with faith. Faith is something that some people have, and some people do not.
It is as simple as that. Elie Wiesel was a man of faith whenever he entered his journey into concentration camp. He prayed often while in Auschwitz. While laying in his cot, he would sometimes sing religious melodies (Wiesel 45). Elie knew that the only thing that was going to get him through the adversity that he was facing during the Holocaust, was his faith. He leaned on it, and he depended on it to keep him alive. Although he leaned on it, he started to lose it at the end of the novel. When the adversity was letting up, when the war was almost over, he had lost himself, and his faith in God.
In Tuesdays with Morrie, Morrie Schwartz does not come out and say that he is a religious man. Mitch asks him one day if he believes that God is testing his faith like He did with Job’s in the Bible. Morrie answers Mitch by saying, “I think God overdid it” (Albom 151). This signifies that Morrie does have faith, but he sometimes has trouble understanding why God has done this to him. Morrie faces his adversity with faith in his heart, and I believe that that is what got him through his sickness, just like Elie’s faith got him through the Holocaust.
Since adversity is a misfortune or distress, it can be hard to handle and can be handled in different ways. Elie and Morrie both handled the adversities that they were faced with in different ways. When Elie was sent to concentration camp in 1944, Elie did not know the adversity that he was about to face. He was unaware of the death and destruction that he was about to be faced with. Elie at first handled this adversity with his faith and hope; however, towards the end he handled it by not wanting to take care of his father, losing his faith, and not staying positive.
The adversity he was dealing with dug deep into his soul, causing him to lose sight of himself throughout his time in concentration camps. Elie did not understand why this adversity was happening to him, and he questioned God about it many times in Night. Although Elie did not handle adversity in the best way, Morrie Schwartz did. In Tuesdays with Morrie, Morrie radiates positivity throughout his adversity. He teaches his past student, Mitch Albom, about life and death. Morrie even quotes at one point in the book, “once you learn how to die, you learn how to live” (Albom 82).
Morrie knows that ultimately the adversity he is facing is death, but he accepts it, and that is why he handles the adversity so well. Morrie not only accepts his adversity, he uses it to teach people about life and the obstacles and adversity that everyone will face throughout his life. Adversity is going to happen to everyone, but seen from the novels Night and Tuesdays with Morrie, it is how one handles it that defines him. Adversity can come in many forms, shapes, sizes, and at different times in one’s life, but the adversity that Elie and Morrie were both faced with had more similarities than differences.
First, the adversities that they were both faced with, was something only a few people know how to endure. From the millions of Jews that were slaughtered in the Holocaust, to the few that have battled with ALS, these adversities would not be wished upon anyone. Elie and Morrie both went through horrifying adversities in their lifetime, and that is something that they probably would have bonded on, had they ever met. Another thing that they both have in common in adversities, is that both of their struggles are teaching people about adversity today. In both Night and Tuesdays with Morrie, lay life lessons that everyone can learn from.
Both men used their adversities and turned it into something greater. They used their adversity for the greater good of humanity. Although there are many similarities in both these novels concerning adversity, there are also a few differences. The biggest difference is the way that they both handle adversity. Elie handles it not so well, and Morrie handles it with grace. Adversity can vary from person to person, but in Elie and Morrie’s case, their adversities were very common to one another in their novels Night and Tuesdays with Morrie. Just as loving, hurting, and death are a part of life, so is adversity.
Some adversity is greater than others, some is not even worth fretting about. The adversity that is faced by Elie Wiesel in Night and Morrie Schwartz in Tuesdays with Morrie, both approach the theme of adversity from faith, handle their adversity in different ways, and have similarities and differences when it comes to the adversity that they faced. Without the adversity in these brave men’s lives, the world may not know adversity on the level that they do now. Next time one is faced with adversity, he should look at the way Elie Wiesel and Morrie Schwartz found a way to deal with the adversity in their lives.