In the books The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank and Night by Elie Wiesel, the

emotions felt by the protagonists in response to the conflicts surrounding them vary greatly due

to different settings, resulting in perspective shifts in the text.

In Anne Frank’s diary, she writes about her daily life hiding within an attic in

Amsterdam, named the Secret Annex, while Elie experiences the horrors of switching from one

concentration camp to another, with the possibility of death hanging over his head every minute.

Though the lives of both the protagonists change greatly during the holocaust, they go through

two very different situations. Anne describes the Annex to be an ideal hiding place, and she feels

comfortable and is fortunate that her family has ended up there. Alternatively, after Elie

witnesses the horror of Auschwitz, he says, “Never shall I forget that night, the first night in

camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed.

Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies

I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky.” (Wisel, 32) This displays the

shock he felt toward that place, and the dehumanizing things that were being committed there

which is clearly in contrast with Anne’s description of the Annex.

Due to the different setting both Anne and Elie are in, they both witness opposite

environments, leading to both of them having varied emotions towards the same problems. Even

as Anne lives in the comfort of a hiding place, she still has the fear of being caught or killed.

“We had a short circuit last night, and besides that, the guns were booming away until dawn. I

still haven't gotten over my fear of planes and shooting, and I crawl into Father's bed nearly

every night for comfort. I know it sounds childish, but wait till it happens to you!” (Frank, 68)

Anne still expresses her feelings of fear just as any teenager would do if threatened to be bombed

on, even seeking the comfort of her father in hopes of calming down. Her response to the
possibility of death is human-like while Elie’s response is very different. “On my father's cot

there lay another sick person…No prayers were said over his tomb. No candle lit in his memory.

His last word had been my name. He had called out to me and I had not answered. I did not

weep, and it pained me that I could not weep. But I was out of tears. And deep inside me, if I

could have searched the recesses of my feeble conscience, I might have found something like:

Free at last!…” (Wiesel, 112) The horrors of the concentration camps have changed Elie’s whole

mindset on the world, and now that his father is dead, he feels as if he is free of his burden of

keeping him alive instead of feeling sadness or having the fear that he may die too. He is unable

to express any other emotion that he would have at the beginning of the book because his

perspective has completely changed due to the trauma he has faced, unlike Anne’s, whose

perspective remains the same.

Both texts suggest that the varying settings that both Elie and Anne experience influence

the way they both perceive the world around them and the situations they are in. Through these

shifts in perspectives, it can be seen how the protagonists change their emotional responses to the

challenges they face which contribute to the impact felt by the reader as one text displays a great

deal of emotion from the author while another text lacks it.