Common Themes in Holocaust Narratives: Night and Life is Beautiful

569 Words2 Pages

Night by Elie Wiesel and Life is Beautiful share common themes. Both of these stories take place during the Holocaust, which was when Hitler wanted to annihilate all of the Jews. One theme they both share is father-son “bonding”. In both stories, 2 of the main characters are the father and son who are both going through the Holocaust. Another theme is silence. There are times in both Night and Life is Beautiful that silence plays a key role. A third theme between the two is innocence. Elie was very young when he entered into the concentration camps. Joshua is even younger when he goes through the Holocaust. The first theme that Night and Life is Beautiful share is father-son “bonding”. When people bond, it is usually during good times and they reminisce over good times they’ve had together. This type of bonding is not like that. Both of these stories revolve around a father and a son going through the Holocaust together which already is a horrific thing. But, in both situations, the father tries to make the best of the times he is sharing with his son. In Night, Elie witnessed many examples of when sons are not nice to their fathers. He even witnesses son's sacrifice their fathers just to survive. Elie was not like that. He had a strong bond with his father. He
In Life is Beautiful, Joshua has to be silent at many points of the movie. When Guido tells him to hide in the bunk beds, he must be completely silent at all times. If someone walks into the room, he is not to make a sound. Another time is when he is eating a meal and Guido gives him a piece of pie. Joshua accidentally says “thank you” in Italian which brings suspicion to the Germans. In Night, Elie finds God’s silence to be troubling. God does not seem present in his life throughout the Holocaust. In one scene when the Nazi’s are hanging a child, someone in the crowd asks where God is. None of the Jews answer which leaves silence across the whole

Show More
Related

  • Similarities Between The Book Night And Schindler's List

    213 Words  | 1 Pages

    After watching the movie Schindler’s list and reading the book night you can obviously spot some of the similarities between the two of these stories. The movie Schindler’s list directed by Steven Spielberg is about a nazi named Oskar Schindler. He started making money of the jews and the war at first. Then Oskar Schindler had changed for the better to save 1,200 jews from being killed in the holocaust. The book Night written by Elie Wiesel is about his time going through the holocaust as a 15 year old jew and having his faith tested every day for about one year. Sure these two stories are completely different type of views but there are some comparison and contrast that I have found by watching Schindler’s list and reading the book

    Read More

  • How Does Elie And His Father's Relationship Change

    742 Words  | 2 Pages

    He had strong faith in God but yet as the story goes on, the camp starts to affect him and slowly loses faith. At the beginning, Elie is really close to God and expresses his faith greatly. “ By day i studied Talmud and by night I would run to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the temple.” (4). He studied the Talmud, which is the study of Jewish faith, everyday when he wasn’t in the camp, and he wept over the destruction of the temple. He wouldn’t have cared for any of this if he didn't have strong faith and believe in God. Now as the story progresses, that slowly begins to change. “ Blessed be God's name? Why, but why would i bless him? Every fiber in my body rebelled.” (67). Elie couldn’t find a reason to. He thought, why would a God let something so horrible happen to all the Jews. He couldn’t apprehend it therefore he questioned his faith in

    Read More

  • Commentary On Night By Elie Wiesel

    560 Words  | 2 Pages

    Night by Elie Wiesel was a memoir on one of the worst things to happen in human history, the Holocaust. A terrible time where the Nazi German empire started to take control of eastern Europe during WWII. This book tells of the terrible things that happened to the many Jewish people of that time. This time could easily change grown men, and just as easily a boy of 13. Elie’s relationship with God and his father have been changed forever thanks to the many atrocities committed at that time.

    Read More

  • Response to Night by Eliezer Wiesel

    1694 Words  | 4 Pages

    Night is an autobiography by a man named Eliezer Wiesel. The autobiography is a quite disturbing record of Elie’s childhood in the Nazi death camps Auschwitz and Buchenwald during world war two. While Night is Elie Wiesel’s testimony about his experiences in the Holocaust, Wiesel is not, precisely speaking, the story’s protagonist. Night is narrated by a boy named Eliezer who represents Elie, but details set apart the character Eliezer from the real life Elie. For instance, Eliezer wounds his foot in the concentration camps, while Elie actually wounded his knee. Wiesel fictionalizes seemingly unimportant details because he wants to distinguish his narrator from himself. It is almost impossibly painful for a survivor to write about his Holocaust experience, and the mechanism of a narrator allows Wiesel to distance himself somewhat from the experience, to look in from the outside.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Father Son Relationship In Night By Elezer Wiesel

    691 Words  | 2 Pages

    I find that the relationship between Eliezer and his father experience to demonstrate a switch in roles during their time in concentration camp. The dark conditions were a void to all of the relationships in camp. Eliezer ’s book Night depicts the life a father and a son going through immeasurable, suffering and testing their bond as a family.

    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

    Elie seems to lose faith in God. “"Yisgadal, veyiskadash, shmey raba…May His name be celebrated and sanctified…" whispered my father. For the first time, I felt anger rising within me. Why should I sanctify His name? The Almighty, the eternal and terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent. What was there to thank Him for?” (33) The God Elie once prayed and cried out to before was allowing his people to die in horrible ways. God, a being who is supposed to be loving and merciful was allowing them to die alongside millions of other

    Read More

  • Significant Changes in Eliezer’s Relationship With His Father

    849 Words  | 2 Pages

    Change is an unpredictable and inevitable thing. One cannot know what alteration it may bring but it can, without doubt, be expected said Hazel M, an Honor English student (par.1). Eliezer, the protagonist in Night, encounters change numerous times. One of the mainly considerable changes he comes across, while in the concentration camps, is that of his relationship with his father. Before the Holocaust, Eliezer’s relation with his father was very distant, I will say non existent. Throughout the novel, enormous remarkable changes occurred in the father son relationship between Eliezer’s and his father. To highlight a few, we will discuss Eliezer and his father’s emotional change, the connection between them as father and son, and how their build trust in their relationship. Eliezer’s relationship with his father is quite important as it allows them both to live through the anguish and despair brought upon them. And their love for each other helped them both stay alive during the course of torture that Jews people were put through.

    Read More

  • Resilience In Night By Elie Wiesel

    716 Words  | 2 Pages

    The theme of Night is resilience. To be resilient is to be strong and able to bounce back when things happen. Elie shows resilience many times throughout the course of Night, and some of these times included when Elie and his block are being forced to run to the new camp, when somebody attempts to kill him and when he loses his father to sickness. When Elie is with the group of people running to the new camp, he knows that he needs to persevere and be resilient, even when the person that he is talking to gives up (Wiesel 86). Elie tries to tell somebody that they need to keep going, and that it will not be much longer, but when they give up, Elie does not seem to pity the boy, and he stays strong. Somebody also attempted to strangle Elie while

    Read More

  • Love and Hope in film Life is Beautiful and novel Night

    1102 Words  | 3 Pages

    "Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower, we feel that we are greater than we know."- William Wordsworth. As stated in this quote, when we have something to hope for, and someone showing us love, we are capable of many things. In the movie Life is Beautiful and the book Night love and hope are the only things that keep the characters alive. This is shown through Elie and his father's relationship when his father reminds him of his fundamental feelings of love, compassion, and devotion to his family. Then Elie and his father look out for each other in hope to make it out the concentration camp alive. Love and hope are also shown in the movie Life is Beautiful when Guido and his son were taken to the concentration camp. Here, Guido's love for his son Josh, kept him alive. Dora, Guido's wife, shows persistent hope which ultimately leads to being reunited with Joshua. In both stories the hope that of rescue and the love that for each other gets the main characters through terrible times.

    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

  • Loss of Faith in Night by Elie Wiesel

    428 Words  | 1 Pages

    Eliezer loses faith in god. He struggles physically and mentally for life and no longer believes there is a god. "Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my god and my soul and turned my dreams to dust..."(pg 32). Elie worked hard to save himself and asks god many times to help him and take him out of his misery. "Why should I bless his name? The eternal, lord of the universe, the all-powerful and terrible was silent..."(pg 31). Eliezer is confused, because he does not know why the Germans would kill his face, and does not know why god could let such a thing happen. "I did not deny god's existence, but I doubted his absolute justice..."(pg 42). These conditions gave him confidence, and courage to live.

    Read More

  • Elie Wiesel Character Change

    968 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the book “Night” by Elie Wiesel, Elie goes through many changes, as a character, while he was in Auschwitz. Before Elie was sent to Auschwitz, he was just a small child that new little of the world. He made poor decisions and questioned everything. Elie was a religious boy before

    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

More about Common Themes in Holocaust Narratives: Night and Life is Beautiful

Open Document