The Oath: Analysis of Major Characters

Author: Elie Wiesel

First published: Le Serment de Kolvillag, 1973 (English translation, 1973)

Genre: Novel

Locale: Kolvillàg, a village in central Europe

Plot: Parable

Time: The early twentieth century to the early 1970's

Azriel (AZH-reel), the only survivor of the Kolvillàg pogrom. Bound by an oath not to reveal how he survived or how the rest of his village was massacred in the pogrom, he wanders from city to city in central Europe as a Jewish Na-venadvik. Others see him as a saint or a madman, a bringer of deep understanding and insight to people of whatever class or age he encounters. Even as he sees all in the lives of others, no one knows the despair of the secret he bears until he counters that hopelessness by telling his story to a suicidal young man. By transmitting his community's history to another person, he saves the young man to live as a messenger of truth and frees himself to return to Kolvillàg and die.

Moshe (moh-ZHAY), a brilliant mystic and mentor to Azriel. Considered a madman by his Jewish community, he wears rags and lives a solitary existence in the woods until he is persuaded to marry the homely Leah out of pity. His entrancing eyes and ability to see into the thoughts and dreams of people frighten them away from him, and Azriel becomes his only student and disciple. As the tension leading to the pogrom builds, he offers himself as a martyr to save the Jewish community and is imprisoned for the murder of the gentile Yancsi. In an address in the synagogue, he binds the Jews of Kolvillàg to a vow of silence over the atrocities of the coming pogrom in the belief that by refusing to preserve the history of suffering, the suffering itself might be halted.

Shmuel (ZHMEW-ehl), the father of Azriel and chronicler of Kolvillàg's history in the Pinkas. A strong believer in the power of the written word to bind the Jewish community and to strengthen the people through recurring periods of persecution, he scrupulously records the deliberations of the Jewish council and the emotional and spiritual responses of the townspeople to the coming terror. Bound by Moshe's vow of silence, he does not write of the pogrom itself yet preserves Kolvillàg's history by giving the Pinkas to his son Azriel and urging him to flee.

The young man, a would-be suicide to whom Azriel tells his story. Overwhelmed by the despair of a life for which he has no “story,” he seeks to find meaning through death. His parents are emotionally scarred survivors of the Holocaust, and the son feels the burden of a historical legacy that contains a mystery he cannot hope to fathom. By listening to Azriel's story, he inherits a message that requires his survival as a means of preserving it.

Yancsi (YAYNK-see), a gentile boy who disappears and is believed to have been ritually murdered by the Jews of Kolvillàg. Abusive and disliked by virtually everyone who knows him while he is alive, he is acclaimed as a faithful son and an innocent victim after his disappearance.

Davidov, the president of the Jewish community in Kolvillàg who futilely seeks to serve as a mediator between his own people and the gentiles through his friend the Prefect, to whom he offers money for protection.

Leah, Moshe's wife, who gains self-respect through his love and who seeks to obey him by not crying after his arrest but is overwhelmed by grief and cries out after his speech at the synagogue.

Braun, a Jewish lawyer who marries a Protestant wife and repudiates his heritage. His father and his son, Toli, are killed in the pogrom.

Sergeant Pavel, a brutal police officer who speaks tenderly to his riding crop as he beats Moshe almost to the point of death in an attempt to elicit names of conspirators and as he leads the mob in the pogrom.

Rachel, the only woman who ever mattered to Azriel. She dies in his arms during his wanderings in central Europe between the two world wars.

Abrasha, a Communist recruiter who gets Azriel's help in Talmudic schools. He is shot and killed in Moscow in a purge.

Rebbe Zusia (ZEW-zhuh), a Jewish master who listens to Azriel's story with his eyes, without words, and sentences him to wander in a search for the freedom not to speak.