Elie Wiesel: Questions of Connections
Racing along the hard gravel path through the cold frigid night, nothing but yesterday's bread in your stomach, as hundreds of men trample you from behind. How will you keep going?
The Holocaust served as a never-ending test of survival, faith, and love for countless people. To keep these things up, they had to employ any means necessary. Most prisoners fought the need for these things rather than facing them. In Elie Wiesel's novel Night, readers are exposed to themes such as the question of God's existence, the value of a father-son relationship, and how easy it is to lose yourself in the face of fear and death. Along with doubts about God's existence, it is also illustrated his followers revolt when
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Wiesel struggles to maintain his belief because he has witnessed the dark side of humanity. This is seen when he thinks, “Why should I sanctify His name? The Almighty, the eternal and terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent. What was there to thank Him for?(Wiesel 33). This takes place as the prisoners arrive at Birkenau and start to grasp the atrocities that are all around them. Realizing the reality of the place they’re stuck in, Wiesel starts to question his unwavering loyalty to God. Another example of Wiesel’s defiance of his religion is demonstrated when he thinks, “I no longer accepted God’s silence. As I swallowed my ration of soup, I turned that act into a symbol of rebellion, of protest against Him” (Wiesel 69). This occurs on Yom Kippur when Wiesel struggled with the decision of whether to fast or not. In the end, he chooses not to fast in defiance of God. Obviously, Wiesel must still have some faith in God, because he revolted against Him. However, after seeing that God did nothing to stop all the horrors Wiesel had seen, Wiesel refuses to acknowledge Him. Ultimately, after being taken from his home, he started to lose hope and his belief in God. Wiesel attempted to hold onto his trust in his loved ones after he lost confidence in …show more content…
In this novel, Wiesel’s difficulties all stemmed from the Holocaust, and every element of his character changed as a result. One of the first things that changes about Wiesel’s identity, and probably one of the most prominent, was his name. This happens on page 42 when Wiesel says, “I became A-7713. From then on, I had no other name”(Wiesel 42). This takes place after Wiesel arrives at Auschwitz, where his name is no longer in use. Prisoners had numbers tattooed onto their wrists and were always referred to by those numbers. This strips Wiesel of one of the biggest factors of someone's identity, their name. Up until it is taken away, people are unaware of the significance of something as basic as a name. Another form of losing yourself, shown as dehumanization, can be seen when someone has been through so much that they no longer act humanely. Considering how much the prisoners at the concentration camps went through, it's no surprise that they made irrational decisions. One of those many irrational decisions was when a son killed his father over a piece of bread. The novel states, “The old man mumbled something, groaned, and died. Nobody cared. His son searched him, took the crust of bread, and began to devour it”(Wiesel 101). This occurs as the inmates are being transported to another camp by rail, and the guards humorously throw a slice of bread into one of the cars. The inmates, as
Elie Wiesel’s Night is an account of Wiesel’s life during the holocaust, during which he and his father were imprisoned in a concentration camp, initially Auschwitz, and later Buchenwald. Though the context of this piece may suggest it is strictly a historical memoir of Wiesel, the account is presented through complex literary techniques that produce a powerful and complex narrative which impacts the reader throughout. This testimony is given through the character of Eliezer, which is representative of Wiesel himself, with certain central themes present. The most prevalent theme presented by Night revolves around the way the holocaust challenges Eliezer’s faith in God, which Wiesel also likely experienced himself. For example, Eliezer begins
Despite being a sincere worshipper of God, religion suddenly became a question to him. The book continued on Wiesel’s struggle to find his faith in the midst of perhaps one of history's most atrocious
To demonstrate this Wiesel writes, “A prayer formed inside me, a prayer to this God in whom I no longer believed. "Oh God, Master of the Universe, give me the strength never to do what Rabbi Eliahu's son has done."”(91). This quote continues to demonstrate how the variation in religious views can be a drastic and sometimes emotional roller coaster in terms of what you do or don’t believe in. I believe these types of decisions can especially come out when in very dire and trying circumstances where it really tests what you do or don’t believe in especially if it’s something that will drastically affect your life. Our final example deals with Wiesel and the other Jews getting up to continue running as instructed by the SS guards, they wake to find many of them perished overnight, “The dead remained in the yard, under the snow without even a marker, like fallen guards.
Faith is a major theme in the novel. From the ghetto to liberation Wiesel has a constant inner struggle over his faith. In the beginning, young Elizer shows constant devotion to an almighty benevolent God. When asked why he prays his responds is "Why did I pray... Why did I live?
but he questioned his reasoning and purpose. Wiesel couldn’t comprehend how a god, his god, who was so merciful, could be blind to the human suffering that was going on. Wiesel wasn’t the only one suffering from the act of believing in his religion, so were the rest of the Jews. It was very hard for anyone in the concentrations camps to have any faith or hope
Wiesel states “You must never lose faith even when the swords hangs over your head.” (31) That even though they are going through hard times, faith is something positive that has to stay with us until it's all over. Also Wiesel states “I did not deny God's existence but I doubted his absolute justice.” (43) What Wiesel is trying to say is that he knew that there is a god out there but at this point he thought that god wasn't acting far with them.
The novel “Night” by Elie Wiesel demonstrates that the desire to survive is greater than any other forces within people. It is one of mankind’s most powerful, yet destructive forces, which impairs their capacity to maintain their sanity and morality. Firstly, Elie illustrates how the survival instinct of an individual living in horrific conditions can overpower even the strongest relationships. Secondly, in the prisoners fight for survival, they portrayed almost all manner of violence and callousness as a result of the victim’s loss of humanity. Finally, Elie was not able to remain optimistic and struggled with holding out hope throughout his tough times.
" Weiser starts thinking of leaving his religion's culture in pursuit of something more "fair" after witnessing escalating acts of violence and hatred against his people. He previously was a devout believer, but these tragedies and the injustice transform him into a "free man," which is a development in his character. In this example, the concept being emphasized is the fundamental topic of the book, which is to never forget. Wiesel's skepticism
Wiesel discusses how God is present everywhere you are and whatever you are doing. Wiesel found hope and strength in the knowledge that God had been with him during the Holocaust. He demonstrates how faith can help individuals overcome hardship. Using a reference to God illustrates Wiesel's individual ideas and confirms that he has had personal encounters with God. As a result of Wiesel's own experience being directly impacted by God and His power, this inspires both emotional regard for him as well as believability.
Wiesel's loss of faith was brought on by the absence of God. This resulted in him questioning why it was God's will to allow Jews to suffer and die the way they had. Another portrayal of religious confliction within Wiesel was the statement of his faith being consumed by the flames along with the corpses of children (Wiesel 34). Therefore, he no longer believed God was the almighty savior everyone had set Him out to be or even present before them. To conclude, his experiences within Nazi confinement changed what he believed in and caused him to change how he thought and began questioning God because of the actions He allowed to take
That nigh the soup tasted of corpses”. Elie Wiesel used to be a vivacious person- always seeking God’s presence- but from the commence of this genocide he has been negatively impacted. God used to be his everything; his strength and his mellifluous song that comforted his very soul. However, all that he is dependent on now is bread and water-
In the novel, “Night” Elie Wiesel communicates with the readers his thoughts and experiences during the Holocaust. Wiesel describes his fight for survival and journey questioning god’s justice, wanting an answer to why he would allow all these deaths to occur. His first time subjected into the concentration camp he felt fear, and was warned about the chimneys where the bodies were burned and turned into ashes. Despite being warned by an inmate about Auschwitz he stayed optimistic telling himself a human can’t possibly be that cruel to another human.
After reading Elie Wiesel’s “Night,” there are many questions readers have. One of them being, how did Wiesel survive the horrors of the Holocaust when so many did not? There were a lot of things that helped Elie through the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel wrote on page vii “There are those who tell me that I survived in order to write this text.” The three most important things revealed while reading “Night” were the importance of religion, humanity or the lack of humanity shown towards others, and the importance of relationships like the father-son bond.
Wiesel changes vastly throughout the book, whether it is his faith in God, his faith in living, or even the way his mind works. In the beginning of his memoir, Wiesel appeared to be faithful to God and the Jewish religion, but during his time in concentration camps, his faith in God wavered tremendously. Before his life was corrupted, he would praise God even when he was being transferred to Auschwitz, but after living in concentration camps, he began to feel rebellious against his own religion. In the book, Elie
To begin with, Wiesel could not believe what was happening. He didn’t believe how cruel the Germans were. Wiesel was living a nightmare and couldn’t escape it. For instance, Wiesel stated, “I pinched myself; was I still alive? Was I awake?