...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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...dedicated to his father, Thomas told him: “do not go gentle into that good night,” but to “rage, rage against the dying of the light” (Thomas, 1 and 3). Thomas hoped that his father would find the strength to not give up in his fight for life. Their familial love gave his father the hope to do the seemingly impossible and defy death, for a little longer. Hope is key to surviving in any situation, but it takes a lot of emotional strength to maintain. During the Holocaust, this was truer than ever for millions of people, who faced death every day, and were tortured, starved, and violated. Their hope in religion, the goodness of humanity, and themselves were continually tested and most victims’ hope were eventually lost because of their suffering. One survivor, Elie Wiesel, wrote a memoir, Night, sharing his experiences during the Holocaust and in a concentration camp, and solemnly displaying his progression of hope. Elie's gradual loss of hope caused him to lose the emotional strength that he needs to survive, which made him desperate to cling on to the familial identity that was...
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...In Night by Elie Wiesel, in face of extermination the Jews of Sighet commit uncharacteristic ‘sins’. Fear had forced silence, fear had forced evil deeds and fear had turned the Jews against one another. The cruelties of natural selection is described in Night by Elie Wiesel, portraying the breaking of the human spirit, damaging faith in humanity, family, and God. Humanity, an important theme in Elie Wiesel’s memoire is portrayed as an ever changing proposition. The Jews of Sighet, and most importantly Elie, is seen struggling with his conscious based on the inhumane acts of oppression he has witnessed. In the beginning his faith is abundant and is evident through his trust in the German’s and disbelief in Moshie the Beadle (his mentor). “He told me what had happened to him and his companions. …The Jews were ordered to get off and onto waiting trucks. The trucks headed toward a forest. ...Infants were tossed into the air and used as targets for the machine guns” (Wiesel 6). Although, Elie did not believe Moshie at first the nightmares described by his mentor became a reality when he had first entered the concentration camps. The traumatizing events witnessed by Elie had caused him to question his faith in the human race while stripping him of reason to live. It was hard for him (Elie) to comprehend that the world would allow the systematic extermination of one race; his conversations with his father upon arriving at the camp describe his deteriorating faith in humanity and...
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...| 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...
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...horrendous as survivors explained. The book ‘“Night’” written by Elie Wiesel does just that as it describes in detail the events that unfolded. In ‘Night,’ Elie is continuously relies on his faith and beliefs to continue fighting. Being constantly surrounded by savages or men that lost faith and gave up causes Elie to question his faith from time to time. Humans in general have a repulsive nature, this is then magnified when pushed to the limit. Not even Elie can escape the evilness in human nature, however, he attempts to keep his innocence or sanity the best out of anyone he encounters. Both witnessing and...
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...Night by Elie Wiesel represents many terrifying truths that has sadly happened during the holocaust. Elie Wiesel supports his main theme multiple times by using many literary devices such as irony and hyperboles to strengthen his message; he gives the reader a more complex , and vivid depiction of the theme. Elies most important and vital human connections are his family or more specifically his father. Sadly as his father began to weaken Elie started to expect him to die and leave him all alone which made him lose his spirit, and determination to survive. Night holds many strong, and powerful themes but one particularly important one is that one must have human connections to have strength and remain sane: these human connections could be...
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...Night by Elie Wiesel is an autobiography about his experience of being forced to survive in a concentration camp. At the tender age of 15, Elie had to witness and suffer through things we could never imagine. As a Jew, one could only choose to die or work until they were too sick to function. Some people were unlucky enough to not get a choice to begin with. Unknowingly, this nightmare would change him externally and internally for life. Due to the atrocities witnessed and experienced during the Holocaust, Elie Wiesel, a once deeply religious individual, loses his faith in God, himself, and mankind. Throughout the story there were many occasions of where Elie started to question and lose his faith in God. One of the many occurances...
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...just keep on moving forward. In the book, Night by Elie Wiesel, he writes about his catastrophic experiences as a child going through and handling the absurd actions of Hitler and his Nazi Army. He explains his experience through all of it from moving from his house to another ghetto, to going to the concentration camps Auschwitz and Buchenwald. At just thirteen this was a life altering and extremely tragic event that occurred in his young life. Through all this his faith in humanity and God are tested, in which is very clear how it changed throughout the book. The book opens with the Wiesel family, a loving family, in their apartment in the Jewish city of Sighet, where they were going about their everyday busy happily. Without any knowledge at all the German and Nazi Army entered into the city, and formed two different ghettos and pilled the members of the Jewish faith into them. Luckily for the Wiesel family the ghetto was formed within the grounds of where their apartment was, so they were able to stay in their home. This was only until they moved everyone out of this ghetto and into the one and last ghetto in the city. While in these ghettos Elie witnessed a lot of horrific incidents, which will forever be imprinted into his memory. These incidents that were so gruesome and horrible that they literally effected how he thought of humanity and his faith in God. He was so scarred from these events that he was so confused on what humanity really was anymore. He had thought of all...
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...“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is like an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.” -- Mahatma Gandhi Hopelessness sometimes just engulfs the mind into not caring or thinking about God because of the disturbing visuals encountered. In the novel Night, by Elie Wiesel, Elie tells how he thought the ocean got too dirty during the Holocaust by explaining his experience. Him and his family are sent to Auschwitz, along with others, where they are separated by gender and chosen to go straight to the crematoria or to work themselves to death. While many died after months of never-ending torture, the narrator's camp is liberated with Elie still alive. Throughout this terrible experience, the author develops the...
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...1 Symbolic Interaction, Functional Analysis, and Conflict Theory of Elie Wiesels’s Night Introduction 2 Symbolic Interaction, Functional Analysis, and Conflict Theory of Elie Wiesels’s “Night” Elie Wiesel’s Night begins in Sighet, Transylvania, 1941 when he was a teenager. He begins talking about a life before his world, along with his family, was torn apart. His family was Jewish, and he wanted to study Cabbala. He was very much involved in his faith and wanted to further pursue it by studying Cabbala, but his father would not let him. “There are no Cabbalists in Sighet.” (pg 4). He was very close with his shtibl, Moishe the Beadle, who later was taken by Hungarian Police and expelled from Sighet because he was a foreign Jew. Once they were taken over by the Gestapo, the babies were used as target practice and the adults were shot. Moishe managed to escape because he was shot in his leg and was able to get back to Sighet to tell Elie what happened. He also tried to tell everyone in town what had happened to him and the rest of the foreign Jews, but no one believed him and he was branded insane. 1944 was when the town of Sighet was split into two ghettos, and no one could leave the town. Shortly after that, the Hungarian police told everyone in town to turn in their valuables (gold, jewelry, etc.) because they were going to the first concentration camp, Auschwitz. This is where Elie and his father were separated from his mother and sisters, and never heard from or...
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...Appearance vs. Reality In the novel Night (1956), Elie Wiesel illustrates the horror that he faces through the Holocaust. Wiesel’s drive to get out of the concentration camp with his father alive causes him to be directed through all of these challenges. When it seems that everything is lost time after time again, he starts to lose himself and his humanity. Wiesel’s detailed descriptions of the Jews denying their inevitable truth that had shown right in front of them is also later shown that not only did the Jewish community, not face their own reality, however Elie Wiesel finds it hard to face his reality through this tough time. The play Oedipus Rex (420) by (Sophocles) also demonstrates the tragedy of how sensitive our mentality can...
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...of Jewish people who had a large faith in humanity or in what we all called God and Elie Wiesel was one of them. Their faith in humanity ended up being lost during the second Great War, which is commonly known as War World II. Though, after the war and after they were saved by the Allies, little by little their faith in humanity and God slowly came back. Even the truest believers, like Elie Wiesel, can lose their faith in all of humanity and even who they call God, but once you are shown even a slightest bit of kindness, you can gain it all back. In the very beginning of Elie Wiesel’s novel, Night, based off his experiences during the World War II, all he wanted was someone to help him in his studies of the Kabbalah. Even though his father thought him to be too young that did not stop Elie from pursuing his dreams. He ended up finding a teacher for his studies of the Kabbalah in Moishe the Beadle. Elie was not the only Jewish child whose studies meant a lot to him. David Weiss Halivini was another child who had big dreams and an even larger faith. He had a dream of being a rabbi of a small village in the Carpathian Mountains (Fox). Though he had to put his dreams on hold after the Germans came and put his family into the ghettos, just like Elie’s family. Also like Elie, he continued with his studies, not wanting to put his dreams on hold because he was moved into a ghetto. Not only did Jewish families have a strong faith in humanity, but Germans who were a part of the Hitler’s...
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...living creatures whether that means humans or animals. Being a part of humanity means to be a part of the tragedies that come along with it. Every day there is some sort of catastrophic event that occurs such as, school shootings, bombings, murders, rapes, and so many other dreadful things. These calamitous occurrences are becoming a part of our daily routine. We may stop to read the newspaper or watch that news segment for a few moments to learn what happened, but we do not take the time to empathize what happened to that person or an entire country. As Bloom had stated, “But empathy will have to yield to reasons if humanity is to have a future” (Bloom), this statement has to muster up some sort of emotion...
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... May 1, 2011 Major Works Data Sheet- Night Title: Night Author: Elie Wiesel Date of Publication: 1958 Genre: autobiography, memoir Historical information about period of publication: World War II, and the Holocaust, ended in April 1945 when the liberating Allied armies came through the conquered territories in Nazi Europe. Night describes 16 year old Elie’s loss of faith in God, humanity, family and morality in general. Elie, therefore, vowed to not speak of his experience in Auschwitz, Buna or Buchenwald (or any event between 1943 and 1945, from the beginning of the occupation of Hungary to Germany’s liberation in 1945) for ten years, until he had time to internalize this dramatic loss, and regain his faith and possession of his memory and life. In 1954, after realizing that even less than ten years after the end of the Holocaust, the world was already forgetting and Jews were abandoning their roots, the time had come to testify and justify to the world that Hitler had not succeeded. Biographical Information about the author: Eliezer “Elie” Wiesel was born on September 30, 1928 in Sighet Romania, where his memoir Night begins. In his childhood (up to the Nazi occupation of Romania) his father encouraged his study of the Torah, other Judaic texts and other literary works. As described in the beginning of Night, Elie was also curious about the realm of Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism. From 1944 to 1945, Elie and his family were subjected to the Nazi terror...
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...To many people, night has the connotation of fear. In the night, one’s vision is obscured by the darkness, leaving behind only unease and uncertainty. In the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel, night symbolizes the suffering of Eliezer in the nightmarish Holocaust which he lived through. During the hours of darkness, Eliezer experiences uncertainty in his ever-evolving situation, fear during his sleepless nights, and loss of those that he cares for. During the Holocaust, Jewish people are forced from their homes, forced from camp to camp, and forced to change against their will. Eliezer and his family anticipate their departure from the ghettos into the lethal uncertainty of this war against them. Eliezer’s mother instructs her children to “go to bed early [and] conserve [their] strength… [as] it was to be the last night spent in [their] house” (Wiesel 18). The night is expected to be a time of rest and rejuvenation; however, the nights proceeding a change are stressful and often represent the fleeting moments of security and consistency in their lives. Even when Eliezer spends his last night in Buna, he is fearful. He knows a change is approaching and despite his horrific circumstances, Eliezer knows it...
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