Throughout the novel Night, Elie Wiesel reveals how in just a few moments his life dramatically changes in ways he never imagines. The title “Night” is a metaphor that refers to the evils and darkness of life, symbolizing death, the darkness of the soul, and loss of faith. Elie is innocent and devoted to becoming closer to God, but once witnessing the cruelties of humankind he questions his faith as well as his strength. The Great Depression in Germany provided the political opportunity for Adolf Hitler. When rising to power, Hitler sees the Jewish people as the enemy race. As a result, he plans to exterminate every last one of them. Wicked men of his Nazi army captured Jews, then changed them profoundly; they took away their homes and all …show more content…
They see fire, smoke, and smell of burning flesh. When Elie arrives at the concentration camp he says goodbye to his mother and little sister, not knowing that it would be the last time he will ever see them, but he holds on to his father. The only thing that keeps Elie going is his father, each is living for the other. After being separated from the women, the SS officer's ask their age and profession. The SS officers then lead them to the crematorium, close enough for them to feel the strong heat of the flames on their skin, they expect the worst, but instead of going in they order them to turn. Despite seeing it with his own eyes, Elie has a hard time believing the scene could be real. He questions if “[he was] still alive? [Still] awake?” and he wondered “How was it possible that men, women, and children were being burned and the world kept silent?”(32) At this point, Elie is no longer a child because of the horrors he saw; he is no longer sure of who or what God is. He wonders why God would allow the Nazi’s cruelties and why would he grant the right to them to kill children. He urges that “Never shall [he] forget the first night in camp… Never shall [he] forget those moments that murdered [his] God and [his] soul and turned [his] dreams to ashes… Never”(40). Although Eliezer survived the concentration camps, he remained mentally imprisoned. Hitler takes away his childhood and ever …show more content…
Elie’s father, as well as many others, did not listen to the warnings of the danger because no one could imagine the horrendous things spoken about. They did not believe humans were capable of such extremities. Elie’s father refuses to leave when they have the opportunity because he too remained optimistic. Elie’s father realize that he made a terrible mistake once they arrive at the camps. He complains to Elie telling him why “did [he] not go with [his] mother” he did not wish to see his only son die right before him without doing anything. He feels guilt in his heart for not protecting his family when he had the chance. Elie mentions in the novel that “The idea of dying, of ceasing to be, began to fascinate [him]. To no longer exist... To no longer feel anything, neither fatigue nor cold, nothing… [his] father’s presence was the only thing that stopped [him]”(86). However, Elie’s father does not make it to freedom which takes away Elie’s reasons to keep living. He claims that his life has no meaning after losing his
In the book Night, we the readers witness the hardships and struggles in Elie’s life during the traumatic holocaust. The events that take place in this story are unbearable and are thought to be demented in modern times. In the beginning Elie is shown as a normal teenage Jewish boy, but the events are so drastic that we the readers forget how he was like in the beginning. Changes were made to Elie during the book, whether they were minor or major. The changes generated from himself, the journey, and other people.
Elie survives the Holocaust through a battle of conscience – first believing in God, then resisting his faith in God, and ultimately replacing his faith with obligation to his father. Elie begins his journey through the Holocaust as a firm believer of Judaism and of his God, using his faith as a motivation to carry on during his ordeal. The last of the Jews
In this book Elie speaks of his hardships and how he survived the concentration camps. Elie quickly changed into a sorrowful person, but despite that he was determined to stay alive no matter the cost. For instance, during the death
”I did not weep and it pained me the i could not weep. But i was out of tears. And deep inside me, if i could i have searched the recesses of my feeble conscience, i might have found something like: Free at last!... ” When his father died Elie wasn't sad all he could think of was the weight that was lifted off his chest, that he no longer had to be constantly worried or tending on his
In Night. People in concentration camps tried to protect each other but struggled very hard to do so. Sometimes, they barely had a chance to begin with. For example, Elie witnessed someone kill himself because they already committed all he had left to taking care of a family member and was stuck. “A terrible thought crossed my mind: What if he had wanted to be rid of his father?
When the Germans attacked children, women , and the elderly, it fueled his anger. "I began to hate them." (Night, 18). When Elie gets to Auschwitz he realizes how evil the Nazi 's really are. Traumatized Elis sees children being dumped into the crematories and bursting into flames.
Near the beginning of the novel, Elie wanted to be in the same camp with his father more than anything else. The work given to both his father and himself was bearable, but as time passed by, “. . . his father was getting weaker” (107). The weaker Elie’s father got, the more sacrifices Elie made. After realizing the many treatments Elie was giving his father compared to himself, each additional sacrifice made Elie feel as if his “. . .
The empathy he felt for his father is what drove him to stay alive, to fight for his life. Without his father, he would have given into exhaustion long before the American tanks arrived at the camp. Elie's father gave him strength, therefore giving him resilience. Strong people are resilient people; it took everything Elie had to keep himself alive. In the times he wanted so badly just to lie down, to give up it was his father's presence which kept him alive.
Night Night by Elie Wiesel is his own accounts of the Holocaust. Elie uses his experiences to inform others of the atrocities he saw, so that history will not allow such events to be repeated in the future. His family is separated. He and his father are sent to Auschwitz. Elie Wiesel survived the Holocaust and his accounts of Nazi death camps portray a dark time for moral values.
The cruelty of the German officers at the concentration camps change Elie’s personality throughout the novel. At the beginning of the novel, Elie is deeply religious and spends most of his time studying Judaism. However, by the end of the novel, Elie believes that God has been unjust to him and all the other Jews, and has lost most of his faith. The cruelty of the German officers also changed the other Jews as well. The events of the Holocaust forces the prisoners to fend for themselves, and not help others.
Throughout Elie Wiesel’s daunting novella Night, the experiences Elie faces brutally strips him
(pg. 32) This shows that Elie was starting to realize the truth, and is trying to believe that all the horrors happening around him are not true. Elie spent his first months at the camp denying that he was in any danger and that he would be safe, he had hope. After months of coming to a sense that there would be no liberation of the jews Elie became numb to the idea of death.
At the concentration camp, at night some of the other prisoners would talk of God and how He works in mysterious ways. They believed that they were being tested of their faith. Elie had a much different view of God after all he has been through because he "...was not denying His existence, but I doubted his absolute justice"(45). Elie still thought that God existed, but now he did not think God had power over everything. He believed if God had power over everything, then he would have prevented all the evil things that the Nazis did to the Jews and his family.
He see’s what's happening and he soon begins to lose his faith and his hope for the future. All in all, we may have never seen the strength or bravery of Elie, had he not kept going forward. He strengthened his faith, and eventually survived Auschwitz. Holocaust survivors seem to always say that without courage and faith, you would never make it out. Another example of this would be when Elie receives gifts from his father.
Night Critical Abdoul Bikienga Johann Schiller once said “It is not flesh and blood, but the heart which makes us fathers and sons”. But what happens when the night darkens our hearts our hearts? The Holocaust memoir Night does a phenomenal job of portraying possibly the most horrifying outcomes in such a situation. Through subtle and effective language, Wiesel is able to put into words the fearsome experiences he and his father went through in Auschwitz during the Holocaust. In his holocaust memoir, Night, Elie Wiesel utilizes imagery to show the effect that self-preservation can have on father son relationships.