The Belief of God and Spirituality The novel Night, by Eliezer Wiesel, is a book written about the author himself. It is about his experiences and challenges he had endured during the Holocaust, as he is Jewish. Eli questions his belief within faith and spirituality due to the severe conditions and situations he was put in. In the beginning of the book, he mentions the fact that he was separated from his family when put into the camp. Secondly, he talks about the traumatizing experiences of having to watch humanity kill their own, and watching experiments being conducted on those who knew no better. The camps were enough of a reason for him to change his beliefs, as they were the place of the deaths of millions. Eli finds it harder …show more content…
To begin, Eli is traumatized by having to watch humanity sink to one of its lowest points in history. He is captivated by the change in heart so many prisoners shared when put in severe conditions. How some were willing to do anything, just to survive another day; including betraying or hurting their own blood. “Religion is based on two concepts; that God is everywhere, even within an individual. Faith is based on questions, not answers.”, a quote from the recurring character, Moshe the Beadle. Eli feels he is mislead by the actions of these betraying prisoners; why would God be so cruel to make them turn on those who they loved? Eli is taught and raised that God is watching from above, and that he is good. Eli is put to the test when he is forced to watch the hanging of other prisoners. He cannot seem to bear the thought of religion after witnessing the Gestapo hang a small child, only to demonstrate the act of true evil. It is at points like this, where he had lost all faith and hope in humanity. The prisoners seem to become cold-hearted and turn their backs towards each other; their only concern is survival. These horrid events in the multiple concentration camps and the inevitable deaths of many lead Elie to wonder how the world can hold so much grudge and fury, only to make matters worse, instead of making
Throughout the story “Night”, there are many ways and examples of man’s inhumanity to man. Elie and many other jews first experienced this when they were forced out of their homes to the concentration camp. Elie and other inmates witnessed violent actions daily at the concentration camps, from soldiers beating inmates and inmates fighting other inmates. Experiencing these actions affected Elie and other people in the concentration camps.
The Jewish Star and the Dirty Needle There are many ways to compare the literary works, GO ASK ALICE by anonymous and NIGHT by Elie Wiesel. Both works have similar aspects to them. Both main characters have a relationship with their parents, the main characters are in the works with having a relationship with God and finally, both of the protagonists have recurring images of death and dying. In GO ASK ALICE and NIGHT, the main characters have to deal with similar aspects.
Elie witnessed some intense cruelty in the camps and he began to question his faith. The event that he was forced to spectate that really changed his view on God was the hanging of the young boy. A young boy with an angel's face was accused of sabotaging an electrical plant that gave power to the camp and was sentenced to death. The boy and three other men were hung in front of all the other prisoners. Before he actually died, he “remained for more than half an hour, lingering between life and death, writhing before our eyes”(65).
Being young as he was and go through this stuff at a young age and was forced to not want to pray to God was a trip that he will never forget. Watching these tragedies to human nature would destroy anyone’s heart or soul. Anybody would have did what the prisoners did and especially Elie. No longer thinks of God as the master of the universe to allow such horrific things. War is a battle between two opponents fighting over something.
Not only does he start to lose faith in God, but also in humanity itself. The beating of his father by the Kapos broke this once clear view of the human race. Seeing man being subjected by man was too much for Eli to understand. His young mind could not understand and only had one choice but to erase what he once knew of humans as a whole. Fear was what he lived by at this point, lest he wanted to lose his
Forced into maturity, Elie’s innocence is ripped from him as he faces many difficult situations. Assigned to a warehouse of electrical materials, Elie and his father are forced into strenuous work and harshly beaten often. Physically Elie begins to become tired, and spiritually he questions his purpose and the meaning of life. Watching on as a young child is sent to the gallows a prisoner questions “For God’s sake, where is God?”, and as Elie answers internally “Where He is? This is where---hanging from this gallows…”
When Elie and his family failed to flee the country, they were sent to concentration camps. There, Eliezer got separated from his sister and mother, but remained with his father. Through the horrors of the concentration camps, Elie lost his faith. Before the war, Eliezer was very religious, but his journey through the Holocaust and Auschwitz made him lose his faith,
Elie basically thinks that the camps are just a nightmare. He wonders how God, someone that he trusts and believes in could be part of such a killing in the concentration camps. His religion is also made fake when he sees a ton of in humanity happening in the prisoners. Elie says, “If all the prisoners were to unite to oppose the cruel oppression of the Nazis.
"Religion is not man 's relationship to God, it is man 's relationship to man" (Elie Wiesel). Elie Wiesel was a twelve-year-old Jewish child when his world was turned upside-down after the German army invaded Hungary in the Spring of 1944. In his memoir Night, published in 1960, Elie writes about the time his father and him spent in Auschwitz-Buchenwald along with his struggle to understand and be faithful to God. This underlying theme reoccurs throughout the book, as Elie questions not only God but himself and his ability to stay faithful through the atrocities he witnesses. Growing up in a religious Jewish household, where his father devoted his life to the study of the Torah while his mother and sister worked in their family store, Elie 's "place was in the house of study" (Wiesel 4).
When Elie is sent to concentration camp, he goes through a lot of emotions. At first he is in denial that human beings could do such cruel things to other people. This stage however is short lived because very suddenly he must adapt to the harsh environment around him. Although eventually the atmosphere takes him over.
Eliezer was faithful to God and humane towards his family, but after his brutal experience in the concentration camps, he would become faithless and relentless. Change was shown in Elie’s religious beliefs in
Elie became independent from God and refused to view him as omnipotent, and therefore, Elie and the other inmates believed that“ [they] were masters of nature, masters of the world” (87). With the daunting experience that Elie had undergone, he felt that the camps had utterly devoured his identity and his soul, but because he suffered blisteringly and managed to abide, even if “ [he] was nothing but ashes now, [he] felt [himself] to be stronger than this Almighty to whom [his] life had been bound for so long” (68). Although Elie was at last, liberated from the concentration camp, the rigorous conditions and brutal treatments from the camps has weakened him physically, mentally, and spiritually. Elie, bereft of his faith and soul, looked into mirror for the first time after his liberation, and “from the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating him” (115). Through tormenting sufferings and witnessing the mortifying decimation in the Holocaust, Elie’s faith is eventually dismantled
17. Discuss the section where Elie is beaten. Out of nowhere, Idek comes up to Elie and begins to beat him. The beating goes on for a few minutes, but to Elie it felt like forever.
Eli then begins to see how people are brutally murdered and tortured. He is shocked knowing that god would allow such a gruesome act to happen. In addition, he begins to lose his faith. For instance, while Eli walks to his bunker he sees hundreds of infants being thrown into a ditch that was lit on fire and kids being thrown into the sky and shot for shooting practice. After, such acts he begins to question his faith.
In the movie, The Book of Eli, the world changes to a cold, bare place, a place that nobody wants to end up in. Most of the people turn into scavengers and have lost eyesight or the ability to read without any books because of the war. The little towns that are still thriving are being taken over by people who want power. The people of the town are being treated badly and food, water, and cleanliness is very scarce. Eli has been a walker for thirty years who is also blind.