Mya Nitsopoulos Mrs. Bitondo Woods ENG 2De March 24th 2023 The Construction of a New Person “A Change in bad habits leads to a change in life” stated Jenny Craig. The experiences people undergo throughout life determine their future. In the memoir Night, Elie Wiesel is a little boy who's taken from his family and put into two concentration camps, Auschwitz and Birkenau. Throughout these concentration camps, Elie undergoes a lot of suffering and adversity to make it out alive. It is impossible to comprehend the amount of distress and terror this little boy, along with the other Jews, had gone through. Elie, as a result of his experiences, changed in his humanity and, as a result, he developed an indifferent attitude toward the suffering of …show more content…
There were many incidences where Elie loses faith in God. At the beginning of the book Elie came under the wing of Moshe the beadle and learned as much as he could from his Jewish faith. In chapter one, when asked why he prays to God, he says, “Why did I pray?… Why did I live? Why did I breathe?” (Wiesel, 4). Elie can’t imagine living without the divine power of God. However, when Elie and his father arrived at the concentration camps, the first night they witness babies being thrown into the fire. “Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever… Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul, and turned my dreams to ashes.” (Wiesel, 34). This is one of many firsts where his perception of God and his faith is being altered. If God was so merciful, where has he been, and what was he doing? These are some of many thoughts. Their faith in God has forever vanished, murdering their souls and turning dreams into ashes. This is a complete change in attitude from the heartfelt, loving, and caring Elie in the …show more content…
Elie is always standing up toward the guards and stating his opinion. Until his humanity is slowly ripped and torn away by the S.S. officers. After the gypsy ripped apart his father, he was completely shocked at how he couldn't get the courage to protect and defend his only living family member. At any other given moment, he would have got right in there and made a difference. He is consumed by his own shadow. “Yesterday, I should have sunk my nails into the criminal’s flesh. Had I changed so much since then? So quickly?”(…) This is evident through how these concentration camps have indeed altered Elie's humanity. He is consumed by his own shadow, staying in the dark instead of being the courageous, passionate, and altruistic little boy he
Over the course of the book, Elie changes from a happy boy to being depressed. This is important to the book as a whole because it connects to the internal conflict. The change is apparent when he gets moved to a concentration camp, when he’s separated from his family, and when his father dies. “We sensed that
Elie’s experience in Nazi’s camps transformed him totally. Elie had lost a great deal through the war and this changed him dramatically. The wickedness and brutality he witnessed had depressing psychological effect on him that haunted him throughout his life. From being a happy child he had become a sullen young man. The most important change in Elie was the value system that he developed through the
In these stories it takes a lot to survive for them. They have to make a lot of changes. Elie changes by slowly losing his humanity. The Nazis made him strip his clothing and shave his head. That’s what started dehumanizing him.
As a result of a constant exposure to brutality, Elie nearly forgets the existence of a standard of humanity, since even the smallest acts of kindness are”judged too humane” (44). As Elie’s situation disintegrates from the stable Sighet to the Nazi concentration camp, he develops
He eventually reaches a point where “[he] had ceased to pray… [he] was not denying His existence, but [he] doubted His absolute justice” (45). Although Elie does not completely abandon his religion, the dawning realization that God was doing nothing to help them and that they were the only ones that could save themselves further challenged his diminishing
He had this thought before he decided not to be a part of worshipping God with the other Jewish men. Faith was what kept most men from giving up and dying because it was the only thing left pushing them to strive each day. For Elie on the other hand, he blamed the whole thing on God. His actions in the end make me ponder how strong his faith really was before this happened, yet we could never come close to comprehending what life was like for him during this time. Can you blame Elie for losing his faith, or do you believe his perseverance would have been stronger had he held onto the possession of his
This shows his previous beliefs and views of how the world is being changed. Unable to fathom a reason that anyone would want to do anything so awful to other human beings, Elie is still confused on how they’re stuck in their situation. He begins to see the betrayal and abandonment in the world, which causes him to have a much more negative perspective. Elie’s drastic shift in how he views the world ultimately changes how he sees
Night Essay Throughout world war two, thousands upon thousands of Jews around Europe were forcefully deported to inhumane concentration camps by the Nazis, who they believed were unequal to them. Millions died, however, many also survived and some spoke of their experiences. In his memoir Night, Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel recounts the horrors and feats that he and his father encountered while imprisoned in numerous concentration camps towards the end of WWII. During that time, Elie faced many decisions that had pronounced impacts on his beliefs, faith in humanity, and life. From the decisions he makes, Elie's innocence and identity are both negatively, and positively changed throughout his experience as a concentration camp prisoner.
Wiesel became resentful toward his God when he witnessed the inhumane acts against innocent people. When Wiesel is in Buna, He witnesses the hanging of two men and a pipel for the possession of arms. The hanging went along as planned except for the fact that the executioner had not modified the hanging for a small thirteen year old child. It did not end his life with a quick snap of the neck but instead with a slow suffocation which they were forced to watch for over half an hour. Before the hanging Wiesel had heard a man ask where is God and how was this being allowed to happen.
Elie is incredibly strong for finding a way to keep his will to survive through all the choiceless choices that have been made for him throughout his
One of those situations is when his father is getting yelled at and disciplined. Elie felt guilty as he did nothing to stop the officer and realized how much he had changed. He depicts this moment in his book when he says,“I had not even blinked… Only yesterday I would have dug my nails into the criminals flesh”(pg39 Wiesel). This is showing how Elie's time in the concentration camp has already taken a toll on his identity and how that change in identity can be found through his guilt in his hesitation to protect his father.
Elie’s suffering in the concentration camps leads him to achieve greatness in his
While Elie is a prisoner, he faces serious detriments in his emotional health. He is no longer able to stand up for his father when he’s being beat by a gypsy at Auschwitz: “Now remorse began to gnaw at me. I thought only: I shall never forgive them for that,” (Wiesel 37). Elie continues to change by becoming more of an “every man for himself” prisoner. When they are marching to Gleiwitz, Zalman, one of his fellow prisoners, says that he can’t go any longer because of the pain that he’s in.
Elie, once so faithful, is one of the first to lose faith in God due to the horrific sights he sees. After witnessing the bodies of Jewish children being burned, Wiesel writes, “Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever” (34). He quite understandably has begun to doubt that his God is with him following the sight of the supposedly chosen people’s bodies being unceremoniously burned. Elie, though, was perhaps not a member of the masses with this belief; in fact, some men were able to hold on to their beliefs despite these horrendous sights. Also near the middle of the book, Wiesel reflects on the faith of other Jews in the face of these events, saying that “some of the men spoke of God: His mysterious ways, the sins of the Jewish people, and the redemption to come.
Had I changed that much? So fast? Remorse began to gnaw at me” The Concentration Camps Did change Elie and the way he reacted to certain things like his father getting hit.