Meaning Of Suffering In Night By Elie Wiesel

“To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.”------Friedrich Nietzsche. Although a little suffering is necessary for people to grow up, no one likes to suffer more in their life. In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, the author uses many vivid descriptions to represent the unbelievable suffering or pain which they experienced in the concentration camp during WWII. They experienced many different, but horrible sufferings which affected their mentality, physical body and their spirits. In Elie Wiesel’s Night, suffering is a black shadow which darkens their original brilliant life and brings agony to them as well.

The first and the most visible suffering is the physical suffering. All people who experience this terrible

Although the mental suffering doesn’t bring so much pain on their body, it afflicts their mind as well. The mental suffering involves the alteration of their mind after they experience the life in the concentration camp. “Right next to us the high chimney of crematory oven rose up. It no longer made any impression on us”(99). This sentence shows crematory oven brings a big trauma to their mind. When they first came to the concentration camp, all of them fear the oven. Everyone tries their best on the selection in order to be alive. As the time passes, they even don’t fear of the oven anymore. It is ironic, and represents they are too scared to fear anything. They don’t care for their life now. The life also makes Elie began to change his mind. “Don’t let me find him! If only I could get rid of this dead weight, so that I could use all my strength to struggle for my own survival, and only wrong about myself”(101). This quotation says Elie has already started to change his mind. Now he faces a significant choice, whether to be survive himself or insisting with his exhausted father. If he get rid of his father, he can try his best to be alive. The percentage for him to survive will boom. But at the same time, he will also suffer from the blame of conscience and morality. If he insisting with his father, he can’t make sure he still will survive till they are free. Now, because of the bad situation, an evil idea come to his mind------

The spiritual suffering means people lose their faith under such situations. Faith is the most fundamental element of a person which can’t be lost easily. When they lose their faith, it also shows they confront a huge suffering. “The question had never entered my head, I wept because---because of something inside me that left the need for tears. That was all I knew”(2). He used to be an enthusiast of the study of God, and even volunteer to learn the theology. But when he was in the camp, he doesn’t believe in God now because he doesn’t understand why God let Jews suffer, and why the God doesn’t give them salvation when they face death and loss of dignity. His change can be found on page 64. “Why, but why should I bless him? I every fiber I rebelled.”(64) The quotation means he has lost his faith after his experience in the camp. He wonders why God doesn’t save those young child who were killed and thrown to the owen in the camp; He also wonders why they are here instead of enjoy their original fabulous life. He doesn’t trust God now because he thinks God doesn’t save them when they suffer, and God doesn’t give equal treatment to Jews. The spiritual suffering also afflicts him when he stay in concentration camp.

All in all, Night by Elie Wiesel uses vivid description to represent different sufferings that Jews have when they are in concentration camp. All of these sufferings bring a lot of pain to their body