As with many of his novels, Wiesel draws upon autobiographical information in his characterization of the protagonist.
Like Wiesel, the novel's protagonist is a Holocaust survivor named Eliezer who works as a reporter and who suffers a horrendous and nearly fatal accident when run over by a cab driver in New York. Dr. Paul Russel is clearly modeled after Dr. Paul Braunstein, the doctor who saved Wiesel's life after he was run over by a taxi cab and to whom the novelist dedicates this book. Furthermore, the protagonist, like the novelist, has a mother named Sarah.
As with many of his books, Wiesel's narrative in The Accident continuously weaves back and forth between the past and the present, guided thematically in a loose order. Wiesel employs a stream of consciousness: Events in the narrator's.....
This is a free excerpt of 135 words. This section contains 396 words. This
study guide contains 17,500 words (approx. 58 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Literature Guide with our The Accident Access Pass.
