...In Elie Wiesel’s “Night”, Elie describes his experiences during the Holocaust. He expressively shares his horrifying experiences and suffering as a Jew. Along all of this, Elie has to deal with his losing faith with his god. The theme of Elie Wiesel’s “Night” is about loss of faith. The book quickly starts up by showing Elie’s religious status. The introduction shows that Wiesel is religious and prays oftenly. When Elie and his father arrives at the concentration camp, Wiesel questions God on how such a place could exist. He struggles mentally and physically during his time in the camp. He was treated cruelly and inhumane. Later on in his experience in camp, the Jews forget about friends and family and start focusing on self survival. God...
Words: 302 - Pages: 2
...Faith is an important part of life because it gives people something to believe in and hope for. In the story “Night” by Elie Wiesel, the main character, Elie, has to learn how to survive the Holocaust. Throughout the the story, he faces hardships and daunting challenges that almost cost him his life. By examining the novel “Night”, we can see that faith is the key to survival, which is important because those who do not have faith often lose focus of the importance of surviving. Elie survives because he has faith. He believes God will save them from a terrible fate. In the story he says, “Oh God, Lord of the Universe, take pity on us in Thy great mercy…”(29) This quote shows that Elie wants God to save him and his people from the atrocious Hungarian police and impending future. Although Elie’s faith decreased and increased throughout the story, he still managed to make it out alive....
Words: 342 - Pages: 2
...Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night tells the story of the Holocaust, the mass genocide of the Jewish people and important event in WWII. The memoir Night begins in the polish town of Sighet. The story is About Elie Wiesel, a Jewish boy whose family gets deported to the concentration camp with other Jews from his town. Upon arrival his Mother and Sister, Tzipora are separated and executed by the Nazis in the Auschwitz death camp. Following that, after months of work, with the advancing allied front, the prisoners were forced to march all night to the Gleiwitz concentration camp. As Elie’s story continues, after being stuffed inside a camp barrack for 3 days without food or water, the Prisoners were let out for a selection, Elie’s Father was chosen to...
Words: 1665 - Pages: 7
...Wiesel’s Changes of Faith The Holocaust brought about many hardships and created severe adversity for its victims that may have created experiences ultimately too traumatic that transformed their lives for years to come, either through starvation and labor in the concentration camps or execution and incineration in the extermination camps. In the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel, Wiesel tells the story of himself as a young Jewish boy born in Romania, who in 1944, was forced into ghettos with the rest of the Jewish citizens and later deported, along with his father, to the Nazi’s largest killing center, Auschwitz-Birkenau. While living through this day-to-day horrifying basis, Elie begins to live with overwhelming fear and total alienation, as well as his increasing loss of faith on God and whether God is even existent or not for His lack of participation in trying to help the Jews. Although Elie manages to survive his long and frightening journey through both labor and death camps, his faith was never at the high-most air-reaching level as it dramatically changed throughout the course of the novel because of his disturbing experiences in witnessing cremated human beings, executions, and the going through the loss of his entire family. Prior to being deported to the camps, Elie’s faith was extremely high as he was well-established with his studies in mysticism and the cabbala and his great involvement with religion through prayers. Elie is finding a great interest in wanting to...
Words: 1428 - Pages: 6
...Loss, one word with so many meanings and simple and nothing can change it. Loss, of a loved one, faith, trust, happiness, your own life; and once it is gone, it is lost, and good luck trying to find it. Sayonara, au revoir, adios, bye. Elie Wiesel’s Night deals with his loss of faith in his God. Wiesel’s problem can be root all the way back to 1942, the beginning of Elie’s awakening, his first insight into the real world, his first insight into the Holocaust. The Holocaust was a horrid event, of ruthless killing, of senseless slaughter, destroying families, and a whirlwind of destruction. Under strain, ones happiness and ones faith is slowly whittled under the knife of opposition and pressure. Elie has lost so much through out his life, losing his family, his friends, but most importantly his faith. The first example of Elie loosing his faith is when he arrived at Auschwitz, Elie and his father are directed to go to the left; a prisoner then informs them that they are on their way to the crematory, Elie’s father recites the Kaddish or prayer for the dead, revolt rises up inside of Elie and he questions God, “Why should I bless His name? The Eternal, lord of the Universe, the All-Powerful and Terrible, was silent. What had I to thank Him for? (Wiesel 31)”. Elie is hopeless, his situation rendering him of his beliefs unable to believe that a holy being could cause such grief. He was stricken with terror that even after his prayers, his deep devotion to the great “lord” that God...
Words: 779 - Pages: 4
...learned? Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel speaks of the importance of sharing his story and others alike to demonstrate to people an event in which he and millions of others lost so much to never happen again. Wiesel speaks of “those moments that murdered [his] God” as he pushes to survive and realizes he will no longer be the same boy as before but a man willing to persevere through the camps without religion to guide him and emphasizes the loss he feels in the camps (Wiesel 34). As Elie Wiesel documents his experience of the Holocaust in his memoir Night, he uses rhetorical questions to demonstrate how the belief in God is challenged, and ultimately lost, during times of tremendous suffering. At the arrival of the first camp,...
Words: 649 - Pages: 3
...“Faith isn't a feeling. It’s a choice to trust God even when the road ahead seems uncertain” -Dave Willis The struggle of leaving God behind come into the minds and hearts of prisoners during the Holocaust. In Night by Elie Wiesel, a young boy, Elie, finds himself in the exact situation when Elie and his father are separated from the rest of the family and put in the concentration camps. There, they are treated like animals, the cruel treatment is excruciating and hard to handle, but Elie makes it out alive leaving his father behind. During the traumatic experience, Elie Wiesel and other Jews were exposed to a great deal of cruel treatment in the concentration camps during the Holocaust. Therefore, he was struggling to keep his faith in the midst of it all....
Words: 894 - Pages: 4
...How would you handle your faith during an extreme trial or adversity? In the memoir “Night” by Elie Wiesel, Elie’s faith begins to change drastically during his time in Nazi captivity. He witnesses atrocious acts such as the burning of babies and the hanging of a young boy. This causes Elie Wiesel to act in ways that can be considered inhuman. As a result of the adversities and devastation that Elie faced, he began to lose faith in God, his fellow man, and even himself; however, some people, instead of losing their faith during trials, grow and increase in faith. From the beginning of his time in the concentration camp, he begins to lose faith in his fellow man and himself. Quite quickly he realizes and fully understands the severity of what...
Words: 1177 - Pages: 5
...of the Jewish faith. The Holocaust is a systematic genocide of Jewish people and other groups that lasts from 1933 to 1945 under the control of a German dictator, Adolf Hitler. Elie Wiesel is only 15 years old when he and his family are sent to Auschwitz and 16 years old when he is liberated from the concentration camp. In his memoir, Night, Elie Wiesel demonstrates the loss of Jewish identity during the Holocaust through his use of literary devices: personification, foreshadowing, and metaphors. The Jews experience a loss of identity and self value before they even get to the camps due to the dehumanizing acts of authoritative...
Words: 1118 - Pages: 5
...In the memoir, "Night", by Eliezer Wiesel, Elie's relationship with other characters is explored. These relationships which are critically centralized within the text play an essential part in the characterisation of the protagonist Elie. One such relationship is that between Elie and his father, which helps in the characterisation of Elie . Another ongoing relationship explored within the text is between Elie and God, which is essential in the further characterization of Elie. Elie's relationship with himself is seen to be centralized in the memoir. Elie's relationship with his father is a critically explored central point in the text because it plays a key role in Elie's character development as it displays Elie's growing selfishness and lack of care toward his father. Through the use of a quote from Pg 35 where Elie is seen to describe that "My head was buzzing ...not to be separated from my father" Wiesel portrays Elie as a loving son and is able to illustrate a strong father-son relationship. Additionally by...
Words: 887 - Pages: 4
...events results in the loss of innocence and an increase in knowledge. Therefore, this relief in one’s life is unavoidable, however can be drawn out with isolation from the world. Some people experience this ablution happens sooner in their life then anticipated. The survivor who are children and young adult survived the holocaust in death camps, lose their guiltlessness as soon as they walked through the gates into captivity. In the Night written by Elie Wiesel, his description of himself as a youngster, innocent teenager, whose innocence was taken from him as the consequence of the horror during the World War Two. Before Wiesel was restricted into a concentration...
Words: 1246 - Pages: 5
...Elie Wiesel’s Loss of Innocence There comes a time in one’s life where a tragic event results in the loss of innocence and an increase in knowledge. Unfortunately this is one of life’s few promises. Some experience this ablution a lot sooner than they should. In children who survived the holocaust in concentration camps, their innocence was taken as soon as their ordinary everyday life was imposed upon by the Nazis. In Elie Wiesel’s book Night, he describes himself as an innocent teenager, a child whose innocence was taken from him as the result of the nefariousness performed by the Nazis in World War Two. Elie and his family were transported to Birkenau where his family was torn apart, leaving him with his father, his sisters and his mother. Once they were separated, he began to slowly lose his innocence. Towards the end of 1941, in the small village of Sighet, Hungary, twelve-year-old Elie Wiesel spent most of his time studying the Talmud. Elie was one of four children born to his mother and father. Hilda was the eldest, then Bea, he was the third, and Tzipora was the youngest. The two eldest sisters helped the parents run the family store while Elie stayed home to study. Elie was very passionate about the theology of his religion, Judaism. He studied Talmud by day and by night he would go to the synagogue to pray. One of his main interests was Kabbalah which is an aspect of Jewish mysticism. Elie asked his father to find him a master to guide him in his...
Words: 2010 - Pages: 9
...Questioning faith is something that happens to most people but the majority have not had it stripped away or been forced to question entire religious beliefs. Elie Wiesel did. In Night by Elie Wiesel, he discusses how Jews were stripped of their homes, titles, gold, and religion. He explains his story of being deported and taken to concentration camps, where he endured countless cruel acts. Elie once an extremely religious young man, tells the story of losing his faith during those horrific months. Eliezer’s loss of faith forever impacted him because seeing such horrible things made it hard for him to have faith how he previously did. Before being taken to any concentration camps, Elie is devoutly religious and is extremely faithful. Wiesel...
Words: 930 - Pages: 4
...Night: By Eli Wiesel Essay Word Count:665 By: Carlos Guerrero Prof. Ted Johnston English 1301 TR 11:30 08 November 2014 We can know the end of the story just by knowing that Ellie Wiesel wrote the book. We know it because this book is about survival. Physically we know Ellie Wiesel survived the holocaust, but does any psychological or spiritual part of him died during the holocaust? Elie Wiesel wrote about all the horrible torture, brutality, degradation, lost, and inhumanities he suffered by the Nazis just because he’s Jewish. Considering Elie was just a teenager, all he had to go through could turn his faith, religion, humanity, or beliefs. Before the Nazis took Elie and his family we could notice that Elie was a strong, religious boy who wanted to learn the Cabbala. Moshe the Beadle taught him it, and answered all Elie’s questions. By the point of Elie learning the Cabbala his faith was very strong. Elie compared praying with breathing, it is something so important for him that he does it without thinking. He’s faith in god is unconditional, and he believes since God is good and its everywhere, then his world and everything in it must be good too. I believe Elie knowing the Cabbala took an important role in his spiritual survival. Elie Wiesel was devoted to his faith to God, humanity of others, and a sense of justice in the world; which eventually we know are beliefs challenged by the holocaust events. One of the first events occurred to Elie was his mother...
Words: 669 - Pages: 3
... Elie Wiesel’s existence begins in Hungary where he is born in a Jewish slum. Life takes a different lane when he lands in concentration camps under the Nazi regime. The period from when he becomes a teenager sees him face the harsh life where his father denies him the opportunity to pursue Cabbala. Elie gets his own master, Moishe the Beadle who significantly tells him to spend time pursuing God through questions and not trying to comprehend His answers. "I pray to the God within me for the strength to ask Him the real questions." (Wiesel 30). Moishe is among the first prisoners taken by Germans and when he manages to escape and tell people of what Germans were doing to prisoners, he is taken for insane. There then follows a trail of events where he undergoes a series of bizarre encounters including the loss of his sisters and mother. This was a very trying time for Elie in which life drives out the innocence from him completely. In the concentration camps, where they are taken to as Jews, they are subjected to incessant torture and Elie witnesses babies burning in furnaces. The aim of this essay is trying identifying various ideas in the book written by Wiesel, identifying their changes, and at last draft a conclusion from these ideas as well as marking a significant change in his life since it takes a toll on his personal relationship with God. Changes in ideas about God and Humanity by Elie Wiesel From an innocent religious boy, Wiesel was geared...
Words: 1327 - Pages: 6
