La Shady was terrified, but she found the courage to peer into the coffin. Before she could, however, a white dove flew out of it. Boyle, who’s secretly puzzled about the dream, tells her that it means she should “give peace a chance” and embrace the Christian doctrine of forgiveness. Boyle asks, “How did the dream make you feel?” La Shady begins to weep: she admits she felt happy and calm when she saw the dove. Boyle assures her that God wants her to feel these good, positive emotions." In Tattoos on the Heart Gregory Boyle serves as a mentor to many people in need of a second chance in life. In this excerpt of the text, Boyle listens to the women instead of trying to tell her how she feels. La Shady explains the powerful emotions she felt during her dream. Boyle stresses that God wants to love us and wants us to be loved throughout the book. In doing this, we become happy. Happiness is every humans main goal in life. On an extreme point for example, a murderer finds happiness in killing people. A teacher finds happiness in educating the uneducated or less educated. La Shady's dream was so powerful that she began to weep because she was overjoyed. Boyle tells the people that this is not a sign from God, but it is the mere communication that God has with us on a secular level. This involves a symbolism in the book of kinship. Kinship is being closely connected to another on an intimate level.
Tattoos on the Heart #2
"One Sunday, Boyle gives a Mass in prison, a place where racial boundaries are strong. At the Mass, however, the Latino and Caucasian prisoners sit together and seem to forget about their rivalries. At one point, a prisoner sings a solo. The singing is painfully bad, and Boyle has to bite his lip to stop himself from laughing. Then, everyone in the Mass—people of all different kinds—begin laughing together, forgetting about racial and cultural differences." This passage in Tattoos on the Heart particularly stuck out to me. This minor part of the book spoke volumes about the big message in this story. It reiterates the theme of Kinship. These men in the church would and probably have tried to kill each other out on the streets. Gang violence seemed to be a big-picture theme in this story. Boyle did not have hypnotize this men in order to have them come together. It was as simple as a man being painfully awful at singing. Every man in the church let out a loud laughter and forgot all past boundaries they once endured. Men of all different shapes, sizes, backgrounds, and color came together and that is what Boyle expresses. That God can show his love through all people. People of the community looked down on these men. God never lost hope in them. God brings out and portrays his love through all people and all things. Unfortunately, these men had to turn to gangs to feel "loved" in a sense or to have a sense of brotherhood. Boyle is professing that God has been with them their whole lives and they are just noticing it.
Night #1
"We were masters of nature, masters of the world. We had forgotten everything—death, fatigue, our natural needs. Stronger than cold or hunger, stronger than the shots and the desire to die, condemned and wandering, mere numbers, we were the only men on earth. At last, the morning star appeared in the gray sky. A trail of indeterminate light showed on the horizon. We were exhausted. We were without strength, without illusions." In Night, Eliezer feels that he is alone even though he is surrounded by hundreds of people. He is unfamiliar to this "world" of concentration camps and oppression. In the last sentence of this excerpt, Eliezer describes he and the men being without strength or illusion. These men are weak. They are so brainwashed that they can not even imagine a happy place. Eliezer begins to lose faith in God by asking a common question about our faith: "why would God do this to me?". That question simply has no answer. God has a plan for all of us but we might not understand it at first. "Condemned and wandering" symbolizes when the Jews were exiled and led by Moses. He, as the Jews did, has no path or direction in his life. He is losing faith in God when he needs God the most. He says they are mere numbers, referring to the numbers they were assigned at the concentration camp, which took place of their name.
Night #2
"One day I was able to get up, after gathering all my strength. I wanted to see myself in the mirror hanging on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto. From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me. The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me." In Night, Eliezer reminisces on what the concentration camps have taught him and what traits they have brought out in him. Eliezer may have made it out of the war alive, but he is dead inside. He has no family. He talks about eyes staring into his implying that after the war he became a new person, whether that person is better or worse is unknown. His faith has changed for the worse. His father was killed. He suffered heavily for a long time in the camps. They emphasized that he has left the camps as a new man, but not in a good way. Eliezer has also changed for the better because he has become stronger after enduring suffering. He will suffer no more physical pain. Separating himself, from his "camp-self" could be a positive thing because he will forget what happened in the Holocaust but will be stronger because it happened.
Throughout the story Tattoos on the Heart Gregory Boyle is portrayed as a Jesus-like figure. Boyle teaches at a Church mainly full of gang member and drug addicts. Boyle serves a mentor towards these men and women. On the other hand, in the novel Night, a boy named Eliezer is brutally punished in concentration camps. Eliezer progressively becomes a different boy than he was in the beginning of the story. He loses faith, his family, and physical health. Now, "what would happen if Eliezer and Boyle's worlds collided?".
Eliezer needed a man like Boyle on his journey through many brutal camps. Boyle is a man who listens and sees good in all things. If Boyle were to endure the sufferings of Eliezer, he would have taken a different approach to things. Facing many challenges along the way, Boyle would be sure to find a good in those difficulties. When Boyle would be separated from his family at the camps, he would have known that God had a plan. He could've believed that God was bringing him closer to his father because his days were numbered. The parable of the lost son was about a son who left his father to go live life. When he came back to his home, his dad was not upset. His father rejoiced saying "God has brought my son back to me. He was dead but he is now alive!". Boyle would have used this parable to explain that God is bringing him and his father closer because they were once separated, relationship wise. Boyle would profess that God is testing him like the devil tested Jesus. If Boyle passed this test he would live eternally with God. Being in a time of suffering and despair, Boyle would come closer to God than ever before asking for help.
Another conflict Boyle would face was when Madame Schachter was yelling on the train. Boyle would consult this distressed woman. He would tell her a story about a woman who was oppressed but she did not consult the Lord with her problem. The woman later committed suicide. He would exclaim to her that the woman in the story is her. Madame Schahcter would now be more religious and leave all of her problems up for God. In the end of the novel, Boyle would have been rejuvenated. The time that he spent in the camps made him rethink his whole life. He would decide what he had to do to change his life for the better when and if he got out of that prison, he left it all up to God. Boyle would have been more religious in Eliezer's position. Even though it was less human interaction, Boyle would take a look at wear his life is headed and change it for the better. At the end of the story, Boyle would realize that God has blessed him with a second chance at life.
Overall, the two main character would have benefitted if they swapped places. Boyle always made the most of his situations. Eliezer doubted any sense of hope in his conflicts. Both Characters were changed in some way at the end of each novel.