...English 10 Rough Draft Essay In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, the author uses symbolism, and metaphors to show the theme loss of faith. Both Elie and his father express signs that they have lost faith in the Jewish religion. This is important because religion is supposed to help people through hard times, and give them faith in the world around them. The first example of this is when all of the Jewish civilians are forced to wear the yellow Star of David. When Mr. Wiesel was asked what the community should do about being shamefully forced to wear the star. His response was rather nonchalant stating. “The yellow star? So what? It’s not lethal…” (11) This shows that Mr. Wiesel is not holding the offense to his religion in high regard, showing...
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...In the beginning of the book when Wiesel would study his Kabbala religiously he said, "I pray to the God within me for strength"(Wiesel 4). This context shows that before he witnessed any inhuman experienced he was simply a boy with a strong passion for faith. This however changed as soon as Wiesel got to a death camp. While Wiesel was in a death camp, he watched as babies were burned saying, "Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God"(Wiesel 34). Obviously, Wiesel saw so much horror and mistreatment he was unable to believe that a God actually exists because Wiesel had a hard time believing in a God who would let such things happen without intervening. This shows that a real God would not let such cruelty happen. Over time as he experienced more hardship and cruelty as his faith eroded to nothing. In conclusion when people experience dehumanization and cruelty their faith can be...
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...Night by Nobel Peace prize winner and famous Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel, is a 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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...As Elie spends more time at these camps him and every other prisoner completely 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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...Rabbi looked out the car's window to see Lebanon’s tall mountains which protected the historical buildings of his hometown, Ehden. The view gave him comfort, to see the town he calls home instead of the tall modern glass buildings that plagued the view of Australia’s cities. The taxi curved along the road, avoiding the rocky mountains and it's neighbours, the cement houses. Some of these houses looked completely new and foreign to this old city making Rabbi feel out of place. He pouted, his town changed. As the taxi kept moving, Rabbi kept noticing differences. He noticed a stump instead of the tall green Cedrus Libani tree where he used to climb with his school friends and eat their carrots dipped in hummus after school to waste time. Rabbi then turned and faced the other side of the road, seeing his old school signalling him that his almost home, but that's not what caught his mind. His school's name changed from ‘Madaris Ehden’ *2 to ‘Abdel Halim’, almost reminding Rabbi of this new town. Rabbi felt that he no longer knew Ehden, that the city he knew like the back of his hand changed into a city he has never visited. Every house he saw as he drove by looked different. Change plagued the streets, and soon enough, Rabbi lost his way home. A sigh escaped his lips as he leaned into the uncomfortable seat. Rabbi wished to be in a familiar environment, he wished to be in Western Sydney driving to work in the populated streets, counting down the minutes till he was late, cursing...
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...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...
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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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...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...
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...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...
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...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...
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...“He was tortured, Remained behind confinement, Remained silent, Death found three gallows, Three black ravens aimed at us, Three prisoners in chains. All eyes were pale, The shadow took his place, Three chairs were tipped over, Silence on the horizon, The two men were hanging.” These are the words of a blackout poem created out of a page of text from the book ‘Night’. The book night is all about a Elie Wiesel's experience in Auschwitz concentration camp during the Holocaust.He never forgot about his experiences because he lived through it. But we shouldn't forget the Holocaust either. It is important to remember the Holocaust so history doesn’t repeat itself and to bring awareness to current situations. The Holocaust is a major part of...
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...throughout Night. Eliezer Wiesel presents the Jewish faith in a moment of extreme darkness however, what gives him the courage and strength to continue to live is his connection with religion and his relationship with God. Initially Elie shows strong devotion, then becomes disillusioned with God’s power, and ultimately redefines the position God holds in his life. In the beginning, Elie Wiesel’s relationship with God in Night shows strong devotion. Wiesel made spirituality inherent to all activities, wished to spend his life focused around Judaism, and devoted all his free time and energy on religious studies. Wiesel believed that religion was a basic survival need, showing that he followed his religion instinctively. When asked why he prayed, Wiesel couldn’t think of a proper answer and thought, “…strange question, why did I live, why did I breathe?”. Wiesel maintained confidence in religion as the situation deteriorated. Wiesel and his people gave thanks to God for survival, keeping hope that God was putting them through a test of hardships what would keep them alive if they kept their faith. When they had arrived at Auschwitz, they thanked God and were able to regain their confidence because, “Here was a sudden release from the terrors of the previous nights”. Wiesel thanked God for the little things that helped him because he wanted a sense of protection and clung to the belief that God watched over them and helped them survive the challenges he faced. When Wiesel’s new shoes...
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...People who are religious are close with God and deny questioning His Being. Wiesel was one of the Jews who survived the Holocaust during World War ll. Wiesel’s identity of God changed during his experience in Auschwitz due to the harsh conditions faced. In the novel Night, by Elie Wiesel the major theme throughout the whole story is that people struggle to maintain any sort of faith in god when faced with extreme struggles. The greatest change to Elie Wiesel’s identity was his loss of faith in God. Before leaving with his family to the camps, Elie was very religious person he would cry after praying at night. When the German police came to take the Jews to the ghettos, they pulled Elie from his prayer. Elie thanks God when he was told he is...
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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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...resist the desire of death. In a beautiful villanelle 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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