Knowing, Belief, and Madness

To know means that you understand teh facts of the situtation, but you may not acknowledge or have faith in these facts/knowledge. This is when someone is in denial; they understand the situation, but can't accept the reality for what it is.

Quote: "So many events had taken place in just a few hours that I had completeley lost all track of time...Surley it was a dream." Here, Elie knows that the time since leaving the ghetto and arriving at the concentration camp has been incredibly short, but he can't even believe that he is in the concentration camp, even though that is the reality around him.

Real World Example: In the Real World, an example of this denial is in the 5-Stages of Grief, which ususally applies to death. During the 5-stages of Grief, people go through stages such as anger, bargaining, denial, depression, and eventually acceptance. During the stages before acceptance, the person going through the grief is essentially in denial about the thing they are grieving for.



To believe something is to completley accept or understand it, even if there is no factual proof that it exsists. This can go hand in hand with knowing, as you may *know* that one thing does not exsist, but you still *believe* that it does.

Quote: "Freed from the barbers' clutches, we began to wander about the crowd, finding friends, acquaintences. Every encounter filled us with joy-yes, joy: Thank God! You are still alive!" Here we can see that Elie and the people around him still have hope; they still believe that in the end thing will be ok, or that there is still hope, when by many definitions there is none. Around them, the reality tells them there is no hope, and yet they still believe that there is.

Real World Example: In the real world, the best example of this is religion. In religion, one will believe that something is true; whether it be a God or Gods, a single belief or rule, and even though there may not be any factual evidence to support these beliefs or to disporve them, the followers of these beliefs still hold them to be true. In essence, they believe regardless of what the reality may or may not be, and make their



To be mad or crazy can be thought of in two ways: either a form of belief beyond just believing, or simply a mental illness. In terms of belief beyond belief, this is because someone who is crazy can take what the belief, while totally disregarding reality, and transforming what they percieve in reality into what they belive. In terms of a mental illness, this takes the form of an illness such as Schizophrenia, in which reality becomes distorted for someone with it.

Quote: "'Fire! I see a fire!'...'It;s nothing, Mother! There's nothing there...'" Here, we see that the Madame truly and firmly believes, and probably percieves, that there is a fire of some sort, regardless of what reality or anyone else says.

Real World Example: Schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a mental disorder in which it is hard or impossible at times to tell between what is real and not real; this is due to very powerful hallucinations. This is a good example of what being "Crazy" or "Mad" can be; even if the person is a genius, if they have a mental disorder such as this, they can't even tell what the actual facts are, and so their "world" is shaped by their hallucinations *and* reality at once.