Elie And His Father Relationship Essay

911 Words2 Pages

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

Show More
Related

  • Commentary On Night By Elie Wiesel

    560 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Human Relationships In Night By Elie Wiesel

    488 Words  | 1 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Father And Son Relationship In Elie Wiesel's 'Night'

    715 Words  | 2 Pages

    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”.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Father Son Relationship In Night By Elezer Wiesel

    691 Words  | 2 Pages

    Upon entering the concentration camps, Eliezer and his father demonstrate a normal father and son relationship. In a normal father son relation, the father protects and gives advice to the son, and the son is dependent and reliant on the father. Eliezer and his father demonstrate this relationship to extremes throughout the beginning of their time in the camp. Eliezer reveals his childlike dependency upon entering the camp. Eliezer displays this dependency during first selection by stating, “The baton pointed to the left. I first wanted to see where they would send my father. Were he to have gone to the right, I would have run after him (Night 26-32) ” . Eliezer’s determination to stay with his father was constantly present. Eliezer reflects on a time in the camp which is all that he could think about was not to lose his father in the camp. Eliezer also requires his father’s protection during their stay in the concentration camps. Unintentionally demanding this protection, Eliezer remembers, “I kept walking, my father holding my hand” (Night 29). Eliezer continues to show his need for his father’s presence. Eliezer’s actions and thoughts reflect his

    Read More

  • Adversity In Night By Elie Wiesel

    986 Words  | 2 Pages

    In his novel Night, Elie Wiesel shows the importance of family as a source of strength to carry on. The main character of the novel is a thirteen-year-old boy named Eliezer. He and his family were taken from their home and placed in a concentration camp. He was separated from his mother and sisters during the selection once they arrived in the camp. His father was the only family he had left with him to face the inhumane environment of the camp. Many of the prisoners lost the will to live due to the conditions. During the marches between camps some of these broken souls would drop to the side of the road where they we...

    Read More

  • Night Elie Wiesel Loss Of Faith Essay

    528 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Father and Son Relationship in Elie Wiesel´s Night

    798 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Night Elie Wiesel Quotes

    1135 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Night

    598 Words  | 2 Pages

    Elie is more concerned about his own safety but does everything g to help his father with out endangering himself. In the book Night, he was telling about when the SS guard were trying to throw his father out of the carriage and Elie says" I set to work slapping him as hard as I could.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Night By Elie Wiesel

    1870 Words  | 4 Pages

    The ground is frozen, parents sob over their children, stomachs growl, stiff bodies huddle together to stay slightly warm. This was a recurrent scene during World War II. Night is a literary memoir of Elie Wiesel’s tenure in the Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel created a character reminiscent of himself with Eliezer. Eliezer experienced cruelty, stress, fear, and inhumanity at a very young age, fifteen. Through this, he struggled to maintain his Jewish faith, survive with his father, and endure the hardships placed on his body and mind.

    Read More

  • Greed And Selfishness In Today's Book Night

    1180 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Loss of Faith in Night by Elie Wiesel

    428 Words  | 1 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Examples Of Change In Night By Elie Wiesel

    780 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Night by Elie Wiesel

    988 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...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.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Life Is Beautiful And Night

    768 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

More about Elie And His Father Relationship Essay

Open Document