God and religion are core themes laced into every page of Night, and several times Elie does question the presence of God in a completely raw and emotional state through the use of Christian themes, loss of civil rights, and influences from other people around him, in fact renouncing God’s presence with Jews in their time of need.
The question of god is perhaps the towering question that confronts all of humanity at one time or another, but faced with a hell on earth scenario, adding forced seclusion with a group of withered individuals still being pushed to the brink, clouds the idea of god in a tyrannical haze of hate and vexation, just as it was for Wiesel. Elie first experiences a question of god not in the camps, but in Sighet, “‘Why do you pray?’ he asked after a moment…. ‘I don’t know,’ I told him, even more troubled and ill at
…show more content…
The Kapos were beating us again, but I no longer felt the pain. A glacial wind was enveloping us.” (Wiesel, 36). Nazis thought the Jewish people were lower than insects, and treat them as though they have no cognitive idea of their surroundings, or felt emotional and physical pain. This treatment of Jews, Romas, people within the gay community, disabled people, and so many more stigmatised groups left survivors with serious survivor's guilt and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as seen in a recent study for psychological trauma in Holocaust survivors, “Most survivors alive today were children during World War II and the current findings call for special attention to the care of these survivors. As they approach old age, they face new challenges, including retirement, declining health and losing a spouse, and this may reactivate their extreme early stresses.” (Marinus Van IJzendoorn,
Throughout “Night” the main character loses his faith. On page 4 it says “Why do you (Elie) cry when you pray?” which means that he cared so much
While facing struggle and adversity, a spiritually connected person may battle with his or her faith. In chapter 5, the Jewish prisoners are all gathered together and are a little anxious on whether or not this will be their last day on earth. They have been tormented because of their beliefs and now there are many questioning their quarrels with God. Elie is struggling to understand why God himself is rejecting and punishing those who serve him and give him his grace but yet are rewarding those who permits others to be gassed and killed.
Night is a dramatic book that tells the horror and evil of the concentration camps that many were imprisoned in during World War II. Throughout the book the author Elie Wiesel, as well as many prisoners, lost their faith in God. There are many examples in the beginning of Night where people are trying to keep and strengthen their faith but there are many more examples of people rebelling against God and forgetting their religion.
So as the morning Sun rose. The light beamed on Christopher's face. The warmth of the sun welcomed him to a new day and woke up in a small house in Los Angeles. Christopher is a tall, male, that loves technology and video games. He stretched and went to the restroom it was 9 o'clock and he was thankful it was spring break and didn’t have to go to school. Christopher made his way to the kitchen trying not wake up his parents and made himself breakfast. He served himself cereal Honey Bunches of Oats to be exact with almond milk. Then he took a shower and watched some YouTube videos before doing his homework.
It can be understood that at that moment, Elie was losing his mentality. Even so, he still had the sense of loneliness that most would have in that situation. Elie was hopeless, wondering where his God was, and why he was silent. Elie never doubted his belief in God, he doubted that the God was not his God, that the God was a terrible ruler. It is important to remember that this is extremely early in Wiesel’s experience with the concentration camps, and his piousness is already decreasing.
Most people have never experienced anything near as awful as what Wiesel experienced. He was one of the only people who found a way to hold onto their faith. Many made excuses not to perform rituals and eventually lost all faith. Wiesel was weakened, but remained faithful. Akiba Drumer, a friend of Wiesel, tried to convince himself that it was a test by God. However, Akiba also lost faith. “Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.” (Wiesel 34) This quote was from a small portion of Wiesel’s “Never Shall I Forget Poem.” It showed how Elie lost faith in God when he saw what the Nazis were doing to families and children. This quote shows how the religious part of Elie was “murdered.” Elie seemed to become foreign and isolated from his people. He seemed to be just going through the motions during his time in the camps. “In the midst of these men assembled for prayer, I felt like an observer, a stranger.” (Mauriac XXI) This quote shows how Wiesel felt like he was a stranger to the religion, community, and faith. Elie Wiesel couldn’t understand why God would hurt people, and most of all why he was spared. “And question of questions: Where was God in all this? It seemed as impossible to conceive of Auschwitz with God as to conceive of Auschwitz without God.” (Hope, Despair and Memory) This shows how Wiesel couldn’t grasp the reasoning behind God. He wanted
Night at the beginning of the novel is described as though Elie was having a difficult time realizing that everything that had happened to
explains Elie (Wiesel 33). Here Elie starts to question if God and his beliefs have become one of
Within the next few years, Wiesel’s simple Jewish life is snatched from his clutch and never seen again, the first crack in the glass of his fragile being. His humanity stripped from him and his mother and sister Tzipora taken, Wiesel becomes jaded and angered with his God. He became an “accuser, God the accused” (Wiesel 68), he could no longer think or speak of God without a question to follow it. One can feel powerful once he denounces his God. It is as if a veil is lifted and suddenly he can see.
The Holocaust was a test of faith for all the Jews that were involved. There were several instances in the book Night when Elie’s faith was hindered. Not only was his faith in God tested, but also his faith in himself and his fellow man. Although the trials of the Holocaust were detrimental to Elie’s faith at the time, a number of the Jews’ strengthened by the test. Whenever the Holocaust began, Elie was very young and wasn’t sure what to believe or understand everything yet, causing him to go back and forth on how he felt and what he believed. The people around him were a tremendous impact on what he was thinking and believing. The state that people came out of the Holocaust heavily depended on who they were when they went in and what they
Mr. Wiesel had intended this book to describe a period of time in his life that had been dark and sorrowful. This novel is based on a survivor of the greatest Holocaust in history, Eliezer Wiesel and his journey of being a Jew in 1944. The journey had started in Sighet, Transylvania, where Elie spent his childhood. During the Second World War, Germans came to Elie and his family’s home town. They brought with them unnecessary evil and despair to mankind. Shortly after young Elie and thousands of other Jews were forced from their habitats and torn from their rights of being human. They were sent to different concentration camps. Elie and his family were sent to Auschwitz, a concentration and extermination camp. It would be the last time Elie sees his mother and little sister, Tzipora. The first sights of Auschwitz were terrifying. There were big flames coming from the burning of bodies and the crematoriums. The Jews had no idea of what to expect. They were not told what was about to happen to them. During the concentration camp, there was endless death and torture. The Jews were starved and were treated worse than cattle. The prisoners began to question their faith in God, wondering why God himself would
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.
Night is a novel that is constructed off of the real life events of the widely known World War II. The novel depicts the moments and situations Eliezer had faced during his lifetime. Religion is a reoccurring topic as everyone's in that situation seeker to get closer to god
Throughout his recollections, it is clear that Elie has a constant struggle with his belief in God. Prior to Auschwitz, Elie was motivated, even eager to learn about Jewish mysticism. Yet, after he had been exposed to the reality of the concentration camps, Elie began to question God. According to Elie, God “caused thousands of children to burn...He kept six crematoria working day and night...He created Auschwitz, Birkenau, [and] Buna”(67). Elie could not believe the atrocities going on around him. He could not believe that the God he followed tolerated such things. During times of sorrow, when everyone was praying and sanctifying His name, Elie no longer wanted to praise the Lord; he was at the point of giving up. The fact that the “Terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent”(33) caused Elie to lose hope and faith. When one cho...
After a brief stay at Auschwitz, they are moved to a new camp, Buna. At Buna, Elie goes through the dehumanizing process of the concentration camps. Both he and his father experience severe beatings at the hand of the kapos. All the prisoners are overworked and undernourished. Many lose faith in God, including Elie. He witnesses several hangings, one of a boy with an angelic face, and sees him struggle for over thirty minutes fighting for his life. To a stranger's cry of "Where is God now?", Elie answers: "He is hanging here on this gallows...." (p. 62). As Elie witnesses the hanging of the young pipel, he feels that it is his God who is hanging on the gallows. Elie i...