Dawn Chapter 6 Study Questions

CHAPTER SIX

1. What is ironic about the meaning of Elisha's name?

         It was the name of a prophet that restored life and Elisha is taking it

2. What does Elisha think the next day will bring him?

         He thinks his body will be weighed down by his life and Dawson’s death

3. Why does John Dawson understand Elisha better than any human being?

         There is a special bond between them because Elisha will be the last living soul Dawson will see.

4. What two burning sensations does Elisha feel?

         The pistol in his pocket and every sentence John Dawson spoke were the two burning sensations that Elisha felt.

5. Whom does Elisha picture when he tries to picture David Ben Moshe?

         John Dawson, he is the only man he knows and has seen that is condemned to death.

6. What experiences did Dawson's artistic hands make Elisha think of?

         He thought of the story Stephan told him, where Stephan’s five fingers were cut off in a duration of five days by a surgeon who had an artist’s hands.

7. Is he right in saying, "Now our only chance lies in hating you, in learning the

necessity and art of hate"?

         I think he is right because hating him is the only way Elisha will be able to cope with killing the man.

8. What is the meaning of, "I've killed Elisha"?

         The Elisha that he was at the beginning of the novella was gone because that person became a different Elisha, a murder.

9. What does he hear his mother say to him?

         He hears him say “poor boy, poor boy”

10. Explain the last line of the novel.

         He had killed his old self when he killed John Dawson. Before he only saw dead people’s reflections in the windows, so that symbolizes that he is dead.

Dawn Chapter 5 Study Questions

CHAPTER FIVE

1. What does Elisha imagine that the room is filled with?

         The dead People

2. What does the beggar tell Elisha about this night?

         That it is the night of many faces

3. What does the little boy tell him?

         That they are there to watch him become a murder, causing them to become murders

4. Why is it significant that it is the boy who speaks?

         Because he is Elisha before the holocaust

5. How did John Dawson react when told he would die?

         He smiled, stating that his stomach had already told him

6. Why does Elisha not want to see Dawson eat?

         Because he was afraid

7. What problem does Elisha think is worse than fear?

         Elisha does not want to laugh because of something John Dawson does

8. In what way does Ilana say that war is like night?

         “War is like night, it covers everything”

9. What other observations of war does she make?

         “We say that ours is a holy war, struggling against something and for something… Against the English for an independent Palestine.” “These are words, and because of these words, we kill.”

10. After the war ends, what does Elisha think will remain?

         That once he became an executioner, he would always be one and always be branded a killer

11. What does he think the silent dead do?

         Judge him

12. What does he say the freedom nation is built upon?

         He said the freedom of the nation is built upon a foundation of dead bodies.

13. Elisha says he is not a murderer but an idealist. How is this true?

         He chooses life instead of death

14. In what way did he, as a youth, try to follow any idealist dream?

         While in their youth, Elisha and Yerachmiel tried to purify their souls enough to bring the Messiah to Earth.

15 What do the presences symbolize as far as what makes a man?

         They symbolize that a man is made up of many different people that helped him become whom he was.

16. What does the revolver symbolize for Elisha?

         It symbolizes Elisha and all of the people that made him who he was, which will turn all of them into murders.

17. Why does he say that in an hour everything will be different?

         Because in that hour he will make himself and all of the dead around him murders.

Dawn Chapter 3/4 Study Questions

1) They said that because they kill us, we must kill them. They think that killing the enemy is justified because they followed the rules that led to their fall. They truly believed that God would have been on their side if they could find out his opinion. 

2) He did not know the men he had killed, and he was in a group so he couldn’t linger on the though of the dead very long. Because he will look into John Dawson’s eyes as he executes him, it will be a more personal experience. The image of the man will forever haunt Elisha, and, at age eighteen, he will stop being a freedom fight and become a murderer.

3) It seems like they say it as a kind of motto, trying to prove to themselves and Elisha that the horrible things they have to do are okay.

4) They relived what it had felt like to face death and escape from its clutches, and the realization that John Dawson has no means of escape finally sunk in.

Plus, in Gad's instance, it may have brought on the awareness that because of what Elisha is going to do the next morning, David Ben Moshe, the man who had saved his life, will die, and he cannot do anything to prevent it.

5) Ilana called him "Poor boy" the same way that Catherine had done when she realized he was dead inside. 

6) That when you kill someone, it makes you a killer for life.

7) already posted on my blog.

3/4 #7

He doesn't want his family to think he is a murder.

He is making excuses. His silence is his Judge, and they are judging him because they are his silence.

Dawn Summary to Page 44

1) A summary of the book up to page 44.

      First Elisha states that "Tomorrow... I shall kill a man" and then questions who this stranger is, what he does and how he acts. He flashes back to a time before the holocaust when he is talking to a beggar about night. The man says that night is purer than day, and when you can see a face in a window that day has passed into night. Every night Elisha looks to see when night moves into day. Later he says that all of the people he sees in the window are dead, so it terrifies him when he sees himself in the window the night after he learned he was to kill a man the next day. He is an 18-year-old holocaust survivor who was liberated from Buchenwald by Americans. When they offered to send him to his old home, he refused, saying that there was nothing left for him there. They asked where he wanted to go and he said that he didn't know. They sent him to Paris, where he met Gad. When Elisha answered his door, Gad told him that he knew everything about Elisha. After inviting himself in, Gad asked for his future, then stated that he was a messenger.He said he would make his future "into an outcry... An outcry first of despair and then of hope. And finally a shout of triumph." He went on to talk about the Movement, and asked Elisha to join them; Elisha agreed. It returns to the present when Ilana is addressing John Dawson's mother on the radio. He flashed back to when he first killed a man, but he was in a group so it doesn't have as deep of a meaning. On the night before the execution Elisha, Joab, Gideon, Gad, and Ilana talk about how death saved their lives. Dead people surround him, the people who created who he was, egging him on to become a murderer, to make them murders also. Ilana said "poor boy" to Elisha, causing him to flash back to his time with Catherine, a lady who likes hitting on people who are death. She said that often and the two words and it still haunted him. The ghostly little boy was him before the holocaust and tried to persuade him to bring John Dawson food. When he finally agrees, Gad races down the stairs instead. Ilana chants "poor boy" and begins to cry.

2) A PREDICTION about what you think will happen.

I believe that the book will continue on to the execution. Because of the English's belief that the Jews are lying, I think that they will continue on with the killing of David ben Moshe to call the Jew's bluff. To prove them wrong, Elisha will still be forced to kill John Dawson, changing himself forever. No longer will he be Elisha the holocaust survivor, but Elisha the murderer. I don't think that he should be called a murderer because he isn't doing it because of a personal hate, but because of an obligation to the movement.

3) What you would do if you were in Elisha's situation.

      Elisha has no choice as to whether he wants to be John Dawson's executioner or not. If I were in his situation, I would have no other options than to go through with the execution or abandon everything I had come to known in Palestine. I'd probably end up following through with execution rather than escaping. Since I would have already gone through the Holocaust, I would not be able to leave behind my life once again. I believe that it would be horrible to be forced to kill another man just because his allies would soon be doing the same to someone from my side. 

Sentence Combining

A) John owns a hat. John loves to wear hats. John's girlfriend likes to see John in cowboy hats. John's hero is John Wayne.

Like John Wayne, his hero, John's girlfriend likes to see him in cowboy hats; he likes to own hats and loves to wear them.


B) My shoes are Nikes. My Nike shoes are designed to play tennis. My Nikes have air soles. I like their weight.


My Nikes, shoes that are designed to play tennis, have air soles; I like their weight.

Dawn Chapter 1/2 Study Questions

1) I believe the crying child represents innocence, which was lost when Elisha went through the holocaust.

2) When you can see a face at the window, which is when day becomes night. It is better for thinking, dreaming, and loving. At night, everything is more intense and true. The beggar says that words spoken in the day take on a new and deeper meaning.

3) Before all of the people he saw in the window were dead, so when he saw his own face it symbolized that he was also dead emotionally.

4) John Dawson, Because the English had captured and were going to execute David ben Moshe, Technically execution is a form of killing, but I don’t think that Elisha is a murder. He is being forced to kill Dawson whether he wants to or not, so I agree with the statement “we are not murders” from his point of view.

5) Maybe at the time the story takes place, but not every person who was English was violent. That would be an incorrect statement to represent the entire population. Certainly there were many English that felt that violence was right, but not everyone.

6) Because although he had probably already killed someone in battle, he was not comfortable being the only one partaking in the execution.

7) Because he doesn’t want to do what he has to, but he accepts that it is what he must to get Palestine a better place.

8) After the holocaust, Elisha did not want to return to his old home because there was nothing left for him there. When asked where he wanted to go, he stated that he didn’t care. He was sent to a youth camp in Normandy shortly after arriving in Paris from Buchenwald.

9) A detective or adventurer

10) Because he had asked for Elisha’s future, Elisha believes he is a messenger. Elisha asks him to sit and Gad does not, like In the Hassidic legends, where the messenger is always standing.

11) Before the Jews were the ones cowering in fear because of the Nazis, so when they were the ones causing others to tremble, it was surprising for Elisha, who thought that the Jewish people were the underdogs.

12) Death has a thousand eyes, and so does night. I think he believes that he is death because he says: “night has a thousand eyes, which are mine.” This statement probably means that Dawn will be centered on Elisha’s killing of people and his struggle with himself to chose weather being death is good or bad.

Dawn Questions (Due Wednesday)

1 paragraph each (at least)

1) brief book summary so far
2) what will happen next?!
3) what would you do?

practice

1) The bear was big. The bear broke open the garbage. The bear ate the left over pizza. Dan's father shot the bear. Dan cried.

When the large bear broke open the garbage and ate the left over pizza, Dan’s father shot the offensive creature, causing his son to cry.

2) Espionage is the secret collection of intelligent information. The history of espionage goes back over two thousand years. Espionage was started in China by Sun Tzu.

Espionage, a secret collection of intelligent information, has a history going back to over two thousand years ago to its start in China by a man named Sun Tzu.