Night, By Elie Wiesel: Character Analysis

Faith is complete trust or confidence in someone or something. In the novel Night, by Elie Wiesel, the narrator talks about his and his father’s experience in a Nazi concentration camps during the height of the Holocaust. Elie and many others struggle with keeping their faith throughout the novel. The silence from God doesn’t make sense to Wiesel, and why him and his father are living in hell. Elie Wiesel’s faith changes and get affected by the many horrors in the life he went through.

Eliezer, the narrator, was a very faithful youngman. He prayed every day in hope to open up his religion. One day a religious friend named Moché the Beadle had asked why Eliezer prayed everyday. Eliezer then genuinely asked himself, “why did I pray? A strange question. Why did I live? Why did I breathe?” (14). Eliezer compared praying to living and breathing as in, if he didn’t pray he wouldn’t be able to function with his life. He did everything based on his religion. Until he went to one of his first concentration camps and was selected to go to the left. He was face to face to the fires of hell, witnessing the deaths of innocent human being. That night, he says, “Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my

faith forever” (43). That night, he saw the untruthfulness of God. Eliezer believes that He cannot save them from the death of the horrible people that are causing death. This was the start of Eliezer dying out slowly like a candle.
Adding on with the thought of Eliezer’s faith diminishing, he talks about the new year for the Jews.

He gives us an image of the crowd of men at the camp celebrating and praising in God’s name. The crowd yelled out the words, “‘Blessed be the Name of the Eternal!’” (74), and Eliezer responds furiously with, “Why, but why should I bless Him? In every fiber I rebelled. Because he has had thousands of children burned in His pits? Because He kept six crematories working night and day, on Sundays and feast days?” (74). Eliezer, on that page, continues to list the faults in his world. He didn’t want to praise someone that has brought so many horrible things to the lives of thousands. He revolted against the name of God. He didn’t want to do anything with him at that

point.
By the end of the book, Eliezer and many people started believing in something else in the world. Many people started hoping for the Russians to make it them before death had caught up to the camp. They wanted to survive and be free. Freedom was driving many people in the camps. In fact, Eliezer gave a lot of faith to his father in the closing of the book. He stood by his father, page 112, and tried remaining calm for his father. Keeping his father alive, gave Eliezer faith within himself. But others would disagree with Eliezer. The head of Eliezer’s block told him he shouldn’t care for his father, only himself (115). He should be “having his ration,” rather than giving his father his own ration. The head of the block was trying to get the idea of believing and relying on himself to survive, not someone else. Eliezer should have his own faith, it should be to survive. Although, Eliezer’s father was the only thing keeping him alive, he had to let go of the faith of his father remaining alive, and let him die.
By the end of the book Eliezer had lost his faith in the good of God. But later in his life revisits his faith. Elie Wiesel was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, and in his acceptance speech he mentions his faith in God. With God, one is able to do action. Wiesel believes anyone who accepts God, can make a change. Wiesel wants people to realize that anyone can make a difference, as long as one is passionate about it. With faith, in anything, anyone can change the world.