The parent-child relationship is one of the longest lasting social ties in human existence. Though it establishes endless support and unconditional love, it also fuels ambivalence, irritation, and resentment. Eli Wiesel’s highly acclaimed memoir, Night, explores this theme of familial bonds through intense trauma. During the Holocaust, Eliezer and his father, Shlomo, are stripped of their identities and sentenced to concentration camps where they slave endlessly for a year. Over time, Shlomo grows increasingly ill and Eliezer must accept the role as parent and protector. This inversion of the father-son relationship parallels the declining faith in humanity, as Eliezer’s world is—essentially—flipped upside down.
Prior to 1944, Shlomo was
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“a cultured man, rather unsentimental” (4), rarely displaying feelings of affection, even with his family. He believed Elie was spoiled and cared more about the well-being of the town than his own kin. However, as time progresses, Shlomo and Elie’s relationship strengthens and they become inter-dependent. When Elie loses faith, wanting to give in to death, he is reminded of his responsibility to his father— “I had no right to let my-self die. What would he do without me? I was his sole support,” (87). For example, Elie gives his father a portion of his bread and food rations to keep him alive. As a father might care for his son, roles reverse and Elie must care for his father. This introduces a transition However, at times, Elie wishes he were relieved of this great responsibility.
“I could use all my strength to fight for my own survival, to take care of myself,” (106). For example, early on in Auschwitz, Shlomo is beat by a guard when asking for the restroom. Elie stands silent, contemplating how he can get farther away to avoid the violence. Instantly, he experiences shame and regret for his own selfishness, thus demonstrating how once-natural bonds deteriorate in the face of intolerance and severe punishment. Likewise, Rabbi Eliahou is abandoned by his son during the Death March. He sensed his father growing weak and “sought separation in order to get rid of the burden” (90-91) before his time grew near. This introduces the theme of “every man for himself.” Human connection and empathy is destroyed. Individuals lose their sense of identity and thus, lose their sense of compassion. If treated like cattle and herded like wild animals, these prisoners resort to animalistic behavior.
“In this place, there is no such thing as father, brother, friend. Each of us lives and dies alone,” (110). For example, one of the prisoners murders his father for a ration of his bread; thus, demonstrating a breakdown in humanity. Terrified that he might resort to this level of violence, Elie clings to his father—and in a sense, his innocence and humanity. Yet, since his father’s death, “nothing matters” (113) to Ellie anymore. He—arguably—loses his will to survive, his ability to feel emotion. This proves that compassion is necessary in the plight of
survival. Of the many relationships formed throughout life, the parent-child relationship is among the most crucial and impactful. The quality of the relationship is not only influenced by the parent’s experience, health, and self-confidence, but also external factors and characteristics of the child. The unique combination of independence and loss of will to live, as demonstrated between Elie and Shlomo marks a decline in the faith of humanity. Amidst repression, dehumanization, and lack of identity, the inversion of the father-child relationship appears all the more terrible/terrifying.
“My father's presence was the only thing that stopped me. He was running next to me, out of breath, out of strength, desperate. I had no right to let myself die. What would he do without me? I was his sole support.” This quote from the book night represents the father son relationship in the book written by Elie Wiesel. Elie Wiesel was a famous writer and a Holocaust survivor. He wrote many nonfiction books, and night being one of his most successful. Through this book, Elie Wiesel indicated that when night came bad things happened. Elie, a young Jewish boy, and his family were forced into small ghettos by Nazis during World War II. Elie and his family later departed to the unknown were the Nazis sent them to a concentration camp in Auschwitz.
Six million Jews died during World War II by the Nazi army under Hitler who wanted to exterminate all Jews. In Night, Elie Wiesel, the author, recalls his horrifying journey through Auschwitz in the concentration camp. This memoir is based off of Elie’s first-hand experience in the camp as a fifteen year old boy from Sighet survives and lives to tell his story. The theme of this memoir is man's inhumanity to man. The cruel events that occurred to Elie and others during the Holocaust turned families and others against each other as they struggled to survive Hitler's and the Nazi Army’s inhumane treatment.
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.
My claim is that the father and son relationship of Elie and his father had a huge impact on his life. The way Elie thinks and the things he does for his father. His relationship takes him to extreme measures supporting him like he is the number one person to live. Elie was a good kid but when it had come to his father everything went up and down for him. So his relationship with his father wasn’t a good one and it was only leading to disaster.
In Eliezer Wiesel’s novel “Night”, it depicts the life of a father and son going through the concentration camp of World War II. Both Eliezer and his father are taken from their home, where they would experience inhuman and harsh conditions in the camps. The harsh conditions caused Eliezer and his father’s relationship to change. During their time in the camps, Eliezer Wiesel and his father experience a reversal of their roles. Upon entering the concentration camps, Eliezer and his father demonstrate a normal father and son relationship.
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...
In the 1930s-1940s, the Nazis took millions of Jews into their death camps. They exterminated children, families, and even babies. Elie Wiesel was one of the few who managed to live through the war. However, his life was forever scarred by things he witnessed in these camps. The book Night explained many of the harsh feelings that Elie Wiesel experienced in his time in various German concentration camps.
Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night, is an account about his experience through concentration camps and death marches during WWII. In 1944, fifteen year old Wiesel was one of the many Jews forced onto cattle cars and sent to death and labor camps. Their personal rights were taken from them, as they were treated like animals. Millions of men, women, children, Jews, homosexuals, Gypsies, disabled people, and Slavic people had to face the horrors the Nazi’s had planned for them. Many people witnessed and lived through beatings, murders, and humiliations. Throughout the memoir, Wiesel demonstrates how oppression and dehumanization can affect one’s identity by describing the actions of the Nazis and how it changed the Jewish
Many themes exist in Night, Elie Wiesel’s nightmarish story of his Holocaust experience. From normal life in a small town to physical abuse in concentration camps, Night chronicles the journey of Wiesel’s teenage years. Neither Wiesel nor any of the Jews in Sighet could have imagined the horrors that would befall them as their lives changed under the Nazi regime. The Jews all lived peaceful, civilized lives before the German occupation. Eliezer Wiesel was concerned with mysticism and his father was “more involved with the welfare of others than with that of his own kin” (4).
The Holocaust will forever be known as one of the largest genocides ever recorded in history. 11 million perished, and 6 million of the departed were Jewish. The concentration camps where the prisoners were held were considered to be the closest one could get to a living hell. There is no surprise that the men, women, and children there were afraid. One was considered blessed to have a family member alongside oneself. Elie Wiesel was considered to be one of those men, for he had his father working side by side with him. In the memoir Night, by Elie Wiesel, a young boy and his father were condemned to a concentration camp located in Poland. In the concentration camps, having family members along can be a great blessing, but also a burden. Elie Wiesel shows that the relationship with his father was the strength that kept the young boy alive, but was also the major weakness.
The Holocaust survivor Abel Herzberg has said, “ There were not six million Jews murdered; there was one murder, six million times.” The Holocaust is one of the most horrific events in the history of mankind, consisting of the genocide of Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, mentally handicapped and many others during World War II. Adolf Hitler was the leader of Nazi Germany, and his army of Nazis and SS troops carried out the terrible proceedings of the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel is a Jewish survivor of the Nazi death camps, and suffers a relentless “night” of terror and torture in which humans were treated as animals. Wiesel discovers the “Kingdom of Night” (118), in which the history of the Jewish people is altered. This is Wiesel’s “dark time of life” and through his journey into night he can’t see the “light” at the end of the tunnel, only continuous dread and darkness. Night is a memoir that is written in the style of a bildungsroman, a loss of innocence and a sad coming of age. This memoir reveals how Eliezer (Elie Wiesel) gradually loses his faith and his relationships with both his father (dad), and his Father (God). Sickened by the torment he must endure, Wiesel questions if God really exists, “Why, but why should I bless him? Because he in his great might, had created Auschwitz, Birkenau, Buna, and so many other factories of death? (67). Throughout the Holocaust, Wiesel’s faith is not permanently shattered. Although after his father dies, his faith in god and religion is shaken to the core, and arguably gone. Wiesel, along with most prisoners, lose their faith in God. Wiesel’s loss of religion becomes the loss of identity, humanity, selfishness, and decency.
The best teachers have the capabilities to teach from first hand experience. In his memoir, Night, Elie Wiesel conveys his grueling childhood experiences of survival to an audience that would otherwise be left unknown to the full terrors of the Holocaust. Night discloses mental and physical torture of the concentration camps; this harsh treatment forced Elie to survive rather than live. His expert use of literary devices allowed Wiesel to grasp readers by the hand and theatrically display to what extent the stress of survival can change an individual’s morals. Through foreshadowing, symbolism, and repetition, Wiesel’s tale proves that the innate dark quality of survival can take over an individual.
Night by Elie Wiesel is an autobiographical novel recording Mr. Wiesel’s experiences during the World War II holocaust. As a 15 year old boy Elie was torn from his home and placed in a concentration camp. He and his father were separated from his mother and his sisters. It is believed that they were put to death in the fiery pits of Auschwitz. The entire story is one of calm historical significance while there is a slight separation between the emotional trauma of what are occurring, and the often-detached voice of the author.
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
Irish Playwright, George Bernard Shaw, once said, “The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity.” Inhumanity is mankind’s worse attribute. Every so often, ordinary humans are driven to the point were they have no choice but to think of themselves. One of the most famous example used today is the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night demonstrates how fear is a debilitating force that causes people to lose sight of who they once were. After being forced into concentration camps, Elie was rudely awakened into reality. Traumatizing incidents such as Nazi persecution or even the mistreatment among fellow prisoners pushed Elie to realize the cruelty around him; Or even the wickedness Elie himself is capable of doing. This resulted in the loss of faith, innocence, and the close bonds with others.