...Faith is what keeps humanity going. Once humanity lets go of faith, humanity will crumble. In the novel Night, by Elie Wiesel, the author puts the reader in his of view where he is the Jew, and the Nazis have captured him. This all takes places during the Holocaust and the novel shows the harsh conditions that the Jews were put through. The camps that the Jews are put into are made to crush their desire for freedom and make them lose all hope. Faith, one of the main themes in this novel, is portrayed very well through the main protagonist. Elie Wiesel, a faithful person in the beginning of the novel, starts to decline his relationship with faith as he is put through more trials and tribulations. In Night, Elie, the main protagonist, is put...
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...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...
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...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...
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...camp Elie had a very strong faith, but later on he began to question god about his beliefs and lost his entire faith while there. While living in Sighet Elie had a very strong faith in God. Faith is believing in something you strongly agree with. Eli believed that God would always be there to help him out. He wouldn't go a day without praying wheather it was day or night he would always pray. Before being evacuated by the German soldiers to move out of the Ghetto to go to the concentration camps Elie was up and early. "I was up by dawn. I wanted to have time to pray before leaving"(18). Elie knew it was there last day in their home. He wanted to take one last prayer in...
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...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,...
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...Elie’s Faith Throughout His Life Elie Wiesel’s Night tells the haunting tale of a young man being turned into an animal because of his religion. Elie was a passionate teen boy who was devoted to Judaism living in Czechoslovakia. But soon, Nazi Germany begins the Final Solution, a meticulous plan to eradicate all Jews and any other unorthodox humans in Europe. Thus, Elie and his family is transported to the concentration camp, Auschwitz. He faces the horrors of the camp, and his faith begins to waver as he and God watch innocent lives being stripped away. Throughout the book, Elie is constantly battling his devotion to God, changing from the faithful teen in the beginning to the animalistic man who hated his god and back to a man who was able to regain his faith. Eliezer was extremely devoted in his religious studies in the beginning, almost as if all his trust and hope went into God. He had a fiery passion to pursue and study the ancient, holy texts of his people, keeping his faith close to his heart. He spent his time either studying or staying at a place of worship. Elie began at the early age of twelve, saying that “I believed profoundly. During the day I studied the Talmud, and at night I ran to the synagogue...
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...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...
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...conflict and a shift in his priorities like his faith and him showing or not showing compassion. Elie shows the reader that showing or having compassion can be is vital in getting through arduous times, whether it is positive or negative. Compassion is a feeling of love and wanting to help someone in need. In Night, Elie experiences things that are compassionate and callous. One example is when Stein, Elie’s cousin, gives Elie and his father advice. “Take...
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...The novel Night presents how Elie Wiesel changes in response to his concentration camp experiences. The separation from his loved ones and the horrible conditions of these camps affects Elie immensely, altering his perception on faith and transforming his physical appearance throughout the experience. The overall ordeal Elie experienced desensitised him to violence and death, affecting his emotions. Elie was transformed by his loss of faith in god and humanity. His loss of faith in humanity and god can first be identified when he arrives at Auschwitz and isolates the ‘smell of burning flesh’ and watches as they throw a load of ‘little children’ into the flames and begins to understand that ‘the world is not interested’ in those of Jewish faith. Elie begins to reject his faith and blame god for what was occurring. ‘Why should I bless his name…What had I to thank Him for?. The hanging of the ‘pipel’ boy was possibly the most critical moment where Elie lost his faith in humanity and belief in God altogether. As the boy ‘struggled between life and death’, Elie realized his God was ‘hanging here on the gallows.’ Elie’s loss of faith was complete. The suffering Elie underwent ‘consumed’ his ideals and beliefs, therefore altering his emotions. Elie’s had to ‘become a different person’ to survive the ordeals of Auschwitz leaving only ‘a shape that resembled [him]’, his emotions ‘devoured by a black flame’. Once being a ‘spoiled child’ Elie was forced to adapt to the situation...
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...Faith Challenged by Evil Historic Event Can a person maintain a stronger growing faith and untouched humanity ideas during an evil historic event like the Holocaust? Elie Wiesel’s book, Night, will answer this question. Throughout history humanity has faced numerous tragic event caused either by nature or human beings, both of God’s creations. The Holocaust, which means “sacrifice by fire”, began in 1933 when Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany. During the Holocaust the Jews were the most affected. The Nazis killed eleven million Jews, almost two-thirds of all the Jewish population living in Europe. Jews were not the only ones the Holocaust targeted; Gypsies, homosexuals, and Jehovah’s Witnesses were also victims of Hitler’s plan. In recent years, events like The Twin Towers terrorist attack in 2001 and the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami have brought enormous suffering to the world, suffering that can somehow be compared to the one lived during the Holocaust. Continuing is the analysis of Elie Wiesel’s horrific experiences during the Holocaust. Did these experiences affect his faith? Was his perception of humanity ideas impacted? The book Night starts describing Elie’s faith as one indestructible. As young as he was he had deep knowledge of Jewish mysticism studies. Elie believed in God; a God of love and unlimited power. He was told that God is the master creator of all world’s wonders and that these wonders where the emanation of the divine world. Elie concluded that if God...
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...Elie and His Conflict About His Faith Elie Wiesel, the author of Night, grew up in a very religious family. On the very first page of the book, Elie tells the reader about how much he believes in God and how much he thinks about religion, but once in Auschwitz, he begins to struggle with his belief in God. Throughout his time in Auschwitz, this conflict is developed and is shown with his anger towards God, questioning God's power, and no longer believing in God. Because of this, Elie’s conflict over his faith is the biggest internal conflict in the book that affects him greatly. Once Elie is in the concentration camp, the conflict starts to build. He feels anger towards God because all of the terrible things that are happening around him and God is not trying to prevent them. We can see his anger at God on page 33: “For the first time, I felt anger rising within me. 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”. This shows conflict because he’s always been “deeply observant” (3) and presumably very thankful to God and now he can’t even bring himself to say the word “God”....
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...“It began in images and it ended in symbolism.” – B. W. Powe. There are many examples of symbolism in the novel Night. Today, we will examine the use of the word “corpses”, the use of fire, and the spoon and the knife Elie’s father gave to him. The first example of symbolism in Night is the use of the word “corpses”. “Corpses”, in this situation, does not necessarily mean a dead body. In this case, “corpses” represents the death of the author’s (Elie Wiesel) belief in God. The day Elie and his father arrived at the camp, Elie’s faith slowly began to go away; the Nazis were burning babies in a ditch. His faith in God was truly lost the night the child, Pipel, is hanged. Everyone that witnessed the hanging thought, “Where is God? Where is He?”...
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...tear-jerking, thrilling memoir. The memoir is on Elie’s abhorrent experiences in Auschwitz and his transformation. Along with many others in the Jewish community, Elie is forced to leave his home and endure the torture and trauma of Auschwitz becoming a whole new person. Elie’s relationship with both his father and God transmuted from his experiences in the concentration camps. Elie’s experience in Auschwitz altered his view of God greatly. As a twelve-year-old boy, Elie was devoted to worshipping God. He wanted to become a rabbi when he was old enough. Although his father would not allow it, Elie found a mentor to help him in becoming a rabbi. After spending one day in Auschwitz, Elie began to lose faith in his God. Elie was put into a line with others who came on the train hearing his father recite the Kaddish thinking this was the end, he then thought, “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). Elie is wondering why they should all praise and thank God when, in the worst of times, God isn’t making some kind of miracle happen or...
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...loses their faith in God and humanity. Spending time in these camps took a toll on everybody, and had everyone reexamining their opinions and perspectives on the world. “My forehead was bath in cold sweat.But I told him that I did not believe that they could burn people in our age, that humanity would never tolerate it....' Humanity? Humanity is not concerned with us, today anything is allowed. Anything is possible, even these crematories....' His voice was choking.” (Night 30) Elie saw after what cruel acts humans are capable of is completely and thoroughly shocked, his father standing beside him supports him through Elie's awakening by giving him bitter words of guidance. With this Elie's faith starts destructing, as he sees how such vile deeds took place with absolutely no repercussions, and in the same way, his father also loses begins to lose faith and is shown through his tone of intense bitter, incensed words. “ 'Where is God? Where is He?' someone behind me asked... For more than half an hour he stayed there, struggling between life and death, dying in slow agony under our eyes..... Behind me I heard the same man...'Where is God now…'..... And I heard a voice within me answer ... Here he is-He is hanging here...
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...like a long moment, . . . when the latter shouted, in a strong and calm voice: ‘Long live liberty! My curse on Germany! My curse! My—’” (Wiesel 62). The young man that is hung on the gallows, indubitably, meets his end with denial and hatred—both of which are obvious through audible action. However, why does Elie seemingly rejoice as he is later consuming his ration? Clearly, it is due to a lack of relevance and, in Elie’s perception, is also what the man deserves. Indubitably, Wiesel’s incorporation of the lack of silence only substantiates the...
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