Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Dawn, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Revenge, Terrorism, and War
Past, Present, and Future
God and Religion
Hatred, Killing, and Humanity
Summary
Analysis
All of a sudden, the room becomes very stuffy. Since midnight, “visitors” have been entering the room, and it’s become crowded. Elisha realizes that the visitors are people who’ve helped form his identity—people he knows well or simply people whose paths he’s crossed at some point. His parents, the beggar, and the grizzled master are there; so are the English soldiers he helped ambush, and people he knew in Buchenwald and Auschwitz. He even sees a smiling little boy who resembles himself as a child, before the war.
Since Elisha has already stated that all of his loved ones are dead, the novel implies that these figures are ghosts. Catherine is just the first of this sudden influx of ghostly figures from Elisha’s past—everyone from his younger self to his childhood authority figures to those he’s been partly responsible for killing himself. As it has done throughout the story so far, the past constantly intrudes on the present and therefore on Elisha’s thoughts about the future.
Themes
Elisha approaches his father and asks what all these people are doing here. Beside his father, Elisha’s mother says repeatedly, “Poor little boy!” His father gazes at him but gives no answer; when Elisha asks the grizzled master, the same thing happens. Finally, the beggar says that it’s “a night of many faces.” He gently squeezes Elisha’s arm and tells him to speak to the little boy, who will answer all his questions. Elisha feels certain that the beggar is not truly a beggar.
Strangely, the ghosts do not speak when they are directly addressed. Elisha’s mother’s ghost picks up the refrain of the other women (Catherine and Ilana) in the story, mourning a young boy’s loss of innocence. The beggar offers indirect guidance, confirming Elisha’s suspicion that he is someone more imposing in disguise, like the Angel of Death or the prophet Elijah.
Themes
Elisha pushes his way through the crowd of ghosts; the effort is exhausting. He asks the little boy what he’s doing here and who all these people are. The little boy looks surprised that Elisha doesn’t know. The answer, he says, is very simple: they’re here to watch Elisha carry out the execution at dawn tomorrow. They want to witness Elisha becoming a murderer—it’s only natural.
Though they appear insubstantial, the ghosts’ presence is weighty enough that dealing with them wearies Elisha, suggesting the heaviness of the past as Elisha considers his future. The ghost of Elisha’s past self confirms that they’re here because of the impending execution.
Themes
Elisha is still puzzled—what does Dawson’s killing have to do with them? The little boy says that Elisha is the “sum total of all that we have been.” Therefore he can’t kill Dawson without them. Elisha begins to understand. In becoming a murderer, he also makes all of them murderers. His mother keeps repeating “Poor boy!”
The little boy—whose speaking suggests that he’s telling Elisha things he already knows deep down—explains that everyone who has contributed to making Elisha who he is now becomes implicated in his acts as a terrorist.
Themes
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Gideon emerges from downstairs and reports that John Dawson is, in fact, hungry. Everyone looks at Elisha. Elisha asks if Dawson knows his fate. Gideon says yes, and that Dawson smiled when he was told—he said his stomach had told him the truth, but he still wants a good last meal. Ilana goes into the kitchen and makes Dawson a sandwich and coffee. But nobody volunteers to take the meal downstairs, even when the little boy stares pointedly at Elisha. Elisha tells the little boy that although he’s never denied food to the hungry, he doesn’t want to be alone with Dawson tonight.
Elisha shrinks from facing Dawson. He doesn’t want to confront Dawson’s humanity hours before having to shoot him—it might confuse his sense of duty and cause him to waver. Yet the little boy’s pointed stare suggests that deep down, Elisha does want to see Dawson, and even wants to see Dawson as a fellow human being who needs something—just like he wanted to serve the beggar he met when he was a boy before the war.
Themes
The little boy acknowledges that things will be very different after tonight, but that for the time being, a hungry man is alive and needs to eat. The other ghosts nod in agreement. Elisha, resigned, agrees to carry the food downstairs. First he asks the little boy if the dead are hungry, too. The little boy says that of course they are; in fact, when the dead rise from their graves at midnight, they go to the synagogue not to pray, but to eat. The ghosts whirl around Elisha, and he wishes he could close his eyes.
The little boy’s argument suggests that, before Elisha commits the irrevocable act of becoming a killer, he must show his fellow human this small, simple respect of enjoying a final meal. The little boy also suggests that ghosts carry a kind of hunger beyond the grave that the living cannot understand. This shows that there is a chasm between the living and the dead that defies Elisha’s understanding.
Themes
Elisha starts to take the food to Dawson, but Gad intervenes and does it instead. It’s only two o’clock in the morning; Ilana says it feels like this night will never end, and it’s so stuffy and hot. Elisha looks out the window at the sleeping city. Elisha imagines that someday, his son will notice Elisha’s sudden, sad expression, and Elisha will tell him he’s thinking of Dawson.
Elisha reflects that what he’s about to do isn’t just an extension of his past, but an anticipation of his future, too. His descendants will have to bear the weight of his actions just as his ancestors do.
Themes
After a little while, Ilana stands beside Elisha. She knows he’s thinking of Dawson. She wonders why Elisha is afraid after living through so much, and Elisha says he’s afraid that Dawson will make him laugh. Ilana says he’s torturing himself too much; someday, this will all be over, and he’ll get married and be happy with his children. Her voice and gestures remind Elisha of his mother.
Elisha fears Dawson’s humanity—something more frightening for him than the act of killing in itself. Ilana tries to brush off his fears by suggesting that the future will heal them, but the presence of the ghosts already teaches Elisha that the past can’t be so easily escaped.
Themes
Ilana begins to understand Elisha better. Stroking his neck as they stand at the window, she tells him that they call this a holy war that’s being fought for an independent Palestine, but those are just words. Truthfully, though, their actions “have the odor and color of blood.” This is war, and they must win in order to survive.
Ilana reminds Elisha of his mother and also seems to represent his conscience—she’s the only one present who acknowledges that, no matter what justifications they offer for their actions, the fighters are waging a cold-blooded war for survival.
Themes
Elisha believes that Ilana is right. Someday the means will be forgotten; the end, victory, is all that will last. But even if Elisha does forget this night, the dead will remember, and in their eyes, Elisha will always be a killer. It doesn’t matter if he kills once or dozens of times, or if he someday moves on to a different occupation. The war has made him a killer, and that will never change, even if the backdrop of his life changes.
Though Elisha tries to accept that, in war, the ends justify the means, the presence of the dead makes him doubt this. The dead will witness his killing, so the identity of “killer” can never be removed no matter how his circumstances change; it will change his humanity in some way while also implicating those who’ve shaped him so far.
Themes
Elisha fears the silence of the ghosts in the room. He always feared the dead, and now he knows that the dead are judging him. Yet he can’t keep his back to them, not wanting to disrespect his parents. He turns around and walks among the familiar faces of the ghosts. His father looks especially sorrowful. Elisha begs his father to judge God, not him. It’s God who made the universe, after all, and decreed that freedom would be built on a pile of dead bodies. His father doesn’t react. He tries to reassure his mother, who murmurs “Poor boy” endlessly, but her pain is too much for Elisha to bear.
Elisha longs for the ghosts to speak, but they remain silent, making Elisha feel their judgment. Elisha tries to convince his father that the unfolding of history—especially the necessity of war—is God’s fault, but his father remains impassive, and his mother continues to bear the grief his actions bring. Neither figure reassures him, suggesting that it’s up to those in the present to act according to their best judgment. Again, it's unclear which boy Elisha’s mother is pitying—whether she pities Dawson for being sentenced to death, or if she pities her own son for having to become a murder or for shedding his moral compass.
Themes
Next Elisha speaks to the grizzled master, arguing that he hasn’t betrayed him; he’s acting for the sake of the living. He also speaks to his childhood friend Yerachmiel, who’d studied Cabala with him under the master. They two of them tried to bring Messiah to earth by fasting, praying, and purifying themselves. But then war broke out, and he and Yerachmiel were sent to different concentration camps. Elisha tells Yerachmiel that he's trying to “force God’s hand,” like they used to do. But Yerachmiel doesn’t respond.
Elisha further tries to convince those who have been nearest to him religiously—his old rabbi and fellow student—that his actions are justifiable. He’s trying to make things better in the world, he argues, by being proactive instead of passive. But they, too, remain impassive.
Themes
Finally Elisha tries speaking to the little boy. The little boy tells Elisha that the dead aren’t judging him. They’re just here because Elisha is here, and they are present wherever he goes and for whatever he does, whether he sees them or not. When Elisha does see them, he assumes they’re judging him, but the truth is that Elisha’s “silence is [his] judge.” Then Elisha sees the beggar and thinks that he isn’t the Angel of Death after all, but the prophet Elijah. The beggar tells him Gad is approaching.
Elisha’s younger self finally responds that the ghosts’ presence isn’t necessarily indicative of judgment. They are with Elisha no matter where he goes and no matter what he does. He further suggests that Elisha is ultimately his own judge. Perhaps this is why the beggar, in Elisha’s mind, seems not to be a condemning sign of the Angel of Death, but of the biblical prophet. In the Bible, a man named Elisha is the pupil of the prophet Elijah, which adds to this interpretation.
Themes
Gad comes in and says that Dawson ate his meal with a good appetite, although he wasn’t hungry. Elisha doesn’t know what to make of this. Ilana wants to know what Gad and the prisoner spent all this time talking about. Gad says the prisoner told him stories. Elisha wants to know what kind of stories, but he’s reluctant to ask more questions. It’s four o’clock in the morning, and dawn is in an hour. Gad hands Elisha a revolver, and Elisha reluctantly accepts it. Elisha asks Gad if Dawson made him laugh. Gad finally laughs bitterly and says that Dawson’s stories were funny, but that he didn’t laugh. He was thinking of David the whole time.
With dawn approaching, Elisha grows increasingly anxious. He is still wrestling with the reality of Dawson’s humanity—wanting to draw closer to it (wondering, for example, why Dawson eats before dying and what stories he has to tell) but fearful of getting too close. Thinking of his condemned friend David, Gad is only able to see Dawson as the enemy. Elisha, though, is still able to think of him as a person.
Themes
Elisha thinks that he, too, will focus on David and that David will therefore protect him. He decides to go downstairs and get to know Dawson. He claims he wants to get to know the man before he kills him—to avoid this would be cowardly. Gad looks at him with pride. The beggar asks if Elisha wants company. Elisha declines, though he knows the crowd of ghosts must join him later. The beggar gives him a searching, kind look.
Elisha tries to believe that vengeance—anger over David’s execution—will harden him against Dawson’s humanity and that he’s mainly approaching Dawson for bravado’s sake. Gad seems to accept this justification and take pride in it, but the beggar seems to be proud for a different reason—that Elisha is taking the initiative to meet his victim face to face and acknowledge Dawson’s humanity..
Themes
Elisha looks around at his talking, yawning comrades and realizes that in an hour’s time, everything will be different—except for the dead, who never change. He checks for the revolver in his pocket, takes one last gaze around the room, and heavily heads downstairs.
When Elisha rejoins the others, he will be different—not just changed from his current self, but implicitly set apart from the others in the Movement, too. It remains to be seen whether the change will be for the worse or better.
Themes
