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Night literary exploration essay
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Night novel essay
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In the novel “Night” by Elie Wiesel, Elie’s and his father’s connection is not a powerful one. It is more of a flexible connection. At the start, they have a feeling of range between them. Elie researches religious beliefs while his dad tends to town in Sighet. They became nearer when they were compelled to keep everything behind in Sighet. Elie and his dad are transferred to a concentration camp, where they became more reliant for one another. The relationship between Elie and his father becomes interesting, suddenly changing from the day of normalcy in Sighet to the day Elie’s father passes away in a camp far away from home. Elie’s relationship with his father becomes ironic. Elie slowly turns into a father figure, a dependent for his dad. …show more content…
Self-preservation begins to become an essential factor after they are removed from everything. Elie has one thought in his mind, “Not to lose him. Not to be left alone” (Wiesel 27). Even though Elie’s connection with his father is not powerful he does not want to lose the only valuable thing he has left. His father was a sort of numb, “There was no display of emotion even at home” (Wiesel 2). His father acts strongly even when he is not. Entering the camp, Elie’s father is hit and Elie does nothing to defend him. "What had happened to me? My father had just been struck, in front of me, and I had not even blinked. Only yesterday, I would have dug my nails in this criminal's flesh" (39). This reveals that, although Elie did not discuss a near connection with his dad, he still feels that he should defend his father for the realization they are dad and son. Elie is very aggressive in that he would have hurt the criminal with his own hands. Surprisingly, Elie is enraged towards the perpetrator. Unfortunately, Elie does not do anything when his dad is hit because he does not want to highlight
Elie’s loss of innocence and childhood lifestyle is very pronounced within the book, Night. This book, written by the main character, Elie Wiesel, tells the readers about the experiences of Mr. Wiesel during the Holocaust. The book starts off by describing Elie’s life in his hometown, Sighet, with his family and friends. As fascism takes over Hungary, Elie and his family are sent north, to Auschwitz concentration camp. Elie stays with his father and speaks of his life during this time. Later, after many stories of the horrors and dehumanizing acts of the camp, Elie and his father make the treacherous march towards Gliewitz. Then they are hauled to Buchenwald by way of cattle cars in extremely deplorable conditions, even by Holocaust standards. The book ends as Elie’s father is now dead and the American army has liberated them. As Elie is recovering in the hospital he gazes at himself in a mirror, he subtly notes he much he has changed. In Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie loses his innocence and demeanour because he was traumatized by what he saw in the camps, his loss of faith in a God who stood idly by while his people suffered, and becoming selfish as he is forced to become selfish in the death camps to survive.
When they first arrived at the camp, his father asked their Blockalteste where the toilets were. “Then as if waking from a deep sleep, he slapped my father with such force that he fell down and then crawled back to his place on all fours. I stood petrified. What had happened to me? My father had just been struck in front of me, and I had not even blinked...Only yesterday, I would have dug my nails into this criminal’s flesh.”(Wiesel,39) This shows that Elie would have beaten the guard had he been allowed to. This next quote shows Elie much later, near Buchenwald in a cattle car, cramped and starving. His father’s corpse has just been thrown off the train “And deep inside me, if I could have searched the recesses of my feeble conscience, I might have found something like:Free at last!...”(Wiesel,112) This shows Elie thinking that if he searched inside himself for remorse, he would have found something that said he was free from a
In his memoir, Night, author Elie Wiesel describes the horrors he experienced during the Holocaust. One prominent theme throughout the work is the evolution of human relationships within the camp, specifically between fathers and sons. While they are marching between camps, Elie speaks briefly with Rabbi Eliahu, who lost sight of his son on the long journey. Elie says he has not seen the rabbi’s son, but after Rabbi Eliahu leaves, he remembers seeing the son. He realizes that the rabbi’s son did not lose track of his father but instead purposefully ran ahead thinking it would increase his chances of survival. Elie, who has abandoned nearly all of his faith in God, cannot help but pray, saying, “ ‘ Oh God, Master of the Universe, give me the strength never to do what Rabbi Eliahu’s son has done’ ” (Wiesel 91). In this moment, his most fervent hope is that he will remain loyal to his father and not let his selfishness overcome his dedication to his father. However, he is soon no longer able to maintain this hope.
In the memoir, Night, Elie Wiesel remembers his time at Auschwitz during the Holocaust. Elie begins to lose his faith in God after his faith is tested many times while at the concentration camp. Elie conveys to us how horrific events have changed the way he looks at his faith and God. Through comments such as, “Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God, my soul, and turned my dreams into dust,” he reveals the toll that the Holocaust has taken on him. The novel begins during the years of 1942-1944 in Sighet, Transylvannia, Romania. Elie Wiesel and his family are deported and Elie is forced to live through many horrific events. Several events such as deportation, seeing dead bodies while at Auschwitz, and separation from his mother and sisters, make Elie start to question his absolute faith in God.
Eliezer thinks of his own father and prays, “Oh God, Master of the Universe, give me the strength never to do what Rabbi Eliahu’s son has done” (Wiesel 91). He didn’t want to admit it but he could already feel his father falling behind. He feared that there may come a time when he would have to choose between his father and his own survival, and that was a choice he didn’t want to make. That choice came one night after being transferred by train to another camp. Once off the train they waited in the snow and freezing wind to be shown to their quarters.
Before Elie Wiesel and his father are deported, they do not have a significant relationship. They simply acknowledge each other’s existence and that is all. Wiesel recalls how his father rarely shows emotion while he was living in Sighet, Transylvania. When they are deported, Wiesel is not sure what to expect. He explains, “My hand shifted on my father’s arm. I had one thought-not to lose him. Not to be left alone” (Wiesel 27). Once he and his father arrive at Auschwitz, the boy who has never felt a close connection with his father abruptly realizes that he cannot lose him, no matter what. This realization is something that will impact Wiesel for the rest of his time at the camp.
Also, he remained calm when his father was harassed by the guards. In the book, Elie said “Then I had to go to sleep”(Wiesel 112) and after his father’s death, the thing he said wasn’t about his sadness. It was about his freedom. He said, “Free at last”(Wiesel 112). Elie is not the old Elie anymore.
...e has to deal with the death of his family, the death of his innocence, and the death of his God at the very young age of fifteen. He retells the horrors of the concentration camp, of starvation, beatings, torture, illness, and hard labor. He comes to question how God could let this happen and to redefine the existence of God in the concentration camp. This book is also filled with acts of kindness and compassion amid the degradation and violence. It seems that for every act of violence that is committed, Elie counteracts with some act of compassion. Night is a reflection on goodness and evil, on responsibility to family and community, on the struggle to forge identity and to maintain faith. It shows one boy's transformation from spiritual idealism to spiritual death via his journey through the Nazi's failed attempt to conquer and erase a people and their faith.
His father is getting old, and weak, and Elie realizes his father does not have the strength to survive on his own, and it is too late to save him. "It's too late to save your old father, I said to myself..."(pg 105). He felt guilty because he could not help his father, but he knew the only way to live is to watch out for himself. "Here, every man has to fight for himself and not think of anyone else. Even of his father..."(pg 105). He thinks of himself, and
Instead of brushing this feeling off, he decided to face this feeling and wanted to help his father more by finding him some soup. This action shows that Elie is not a brute because he is still capable of feeling empathy and compassion towards his father.
When people are placed in difficult, desolate situations, they often change in a substantial way. In Night by Elie Wiesel, the protagonist, Elie, is sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp where he undergoes many devastating experiences. Due to these traumatic events, Elie changes drastically, losing his passion in God, becoming disconnected with his father, and maturing when it matters most.
Elies father still gets hurt and Elies does nothing when a Kapo prone the violence attacks his father. The only thing that was in Elies mind was, “I had watched the whole scene without moving. I kept quiet. In fact I was thinking of how to get farther away so that I would not be hit myself...That is what concentration camp life had made of me”.
First and foremost, Elie begins to question himself and his morals as a person. He acknowledges that the way he was behaving wasn’t like his normal self. “What had happened to me? My father had just been struck, in front of me, and I had not even blinked. I had watched and kept silent. Only yesterday, I would have dug my nails into this criminal's flesh. Had I changed that much? So fast? Remorse began to gnaw at me. All I could think was: I shall never forgive them for this.” (39) Elie seems to have become numb to the violence going on around him at this point. Elie watched his father get hit for simply asking where the restrooms were located, yet he stayed silent to protect his own skin. He loses his faith in himself and his will to stand up for what is right.
In Night, the relationship between Elie and his father seems to flow both ways. What this means is that Elie looks after his father and his father looks after him. In the beginning of the book, Elie lies to the concentration camp officials about his age just to stay close to his father (Wiesel, 2006). This shows that Elie loves his father and would like to stay near him in order to take care of him when he becomes languid. Toward the end of Elie's fathers life, he gives Elie his only two possessions which were a spoon and a knife (Wiesel, 2006). His father knew it was not much, but he knew that Elie would be able to use it and it would be something Elie would remember him by. In "Life is Beautiful", more of a "one way" relationship is conveyed between father and son. The film shows Guido looking out for Joshua trying to protect his innocence from the truth ("Life is Beautiful", 2000). Joshua is unable to look out for his father because he is so young unlike Elie. Both boys love their fathers, but show it in two different
Having a supportive father can help one drive for success. At the beginning of Night Elie’s bond with his father is weak but