Night’s Brutish Theme and its Effect on Eliezer In the novel Night, by Elie Wiesel, the atrocities and cruel treatment can make good people into brutes, however Eliezer escapes this fate and he is able to retain his goodness through the end of the story. Eliezer is the main character who starts out in the novel as a very devout Jew living in Sighet, Transylvania at the beginning of World War Two. As the years progress in the war, Eliezer and the Jews are taken from their homes and either put in a crematorium, or forced to work in a concentration camp by Nazi Germany. The hard labor and extreme conditions crippled the spirits of many virtuous people, however Eliezer managed to sustain his good will through how he fights to keep his father alive, how he does not give up on his father even though he knows it would benefit him, and how he is deeply affected by his father’s death. Many sons give up on their fathers, but Eliezer does not resort to that low level of brutish behavior. Eliezer’s father is quite elderly at the beginning of the novel, nearly fifty, and the hard work of the concentration camps did not do him any favors. It made him weak and pushed his body beyond the limits. After being forced to run for many …show more content…
However, Eliezer is able to escape this doomed fate and he holds onto his benevolence. Years in the concentration camps harden even the most pure people into selfish individuals. To them, there is no such thing as friend, father, or family. Nevertheless, Eliezer remains a virtuous person. Throughout the novel his humanity endures through how he fights to keep his father alive, how he does not give up on his father even though he would benefit from it, and how his father’s death has a huge affect on him. The inhumane mistreatment in the concentration camps dehumanized many people, but Eliezer withstood the hardships and he kept his compassion throughout the