In Night, Eliezer feels as if that both his belief in God and his father are holding him back. His faith forces him to rely on false hope, while his father holds him back from physically surviving. Although by letting both go allows Elie to focus on his own survival, both were Elie’s main sources of motivation to live on. Both his father and his faith in God held Elie back from attempting to ensure his own survival, but by letting both go he’s losing his reason for struggling in the first place. Elie’s faith completely shatters after the young boy is hanged. After the boy is hanged, him and other men and sitting together, questioning the presence of God and why he allowed an innocent boy to be suffocated to death. Elie’s response to this questions
Both are correct in their own ways, as Elie continues to lose faith in God as well as question God’s reasonings to why he betrayed those who believed in him, “These men here, whom You have betrayed… they pray before You! They praise Your name!”(64). Elie soon realized the power that came with losing faith. By questioning God, Elie now had the power over God as the “accuser” while God was the “accused” (65). Elie also felt the same strength over God when he ate rather than fasting, “I saw in the gesture an act (eating bread and soup) of rebellion” (66). Despite having felt that surge of strength, he creates a void in himself where his faith, which Elie heavily relied on, once was. By ceasing to believe in God, Elie has lost a key
Throughout their time at the concentration camps, Elie continuously shows the frustration he feels regarding his father, “I was angry with him (Elie’s father), for not knowing how to avoid Idek’s outbreak” (52). Elie is seen as not only more physically capable but also more mentally capable than his father, causing Elie to take charge of both his and his father’s lives, “‘Let’s be evacuated with the others,’ I said to him. He (Elie’s father) did not answer” (78). As time went on, Elie’s father continuously grew more and more weak. So weak that Elie even compared him to a “timid, weak, child” (100). Despite his father’s extreme health decline, Elie still attempted to help his father achieve survival, only to do it half-heartedly, “I gave him what was left of my soup… I felt that I was giving it up against my will” (102). Again, Elie was not the only person who dealt with this situation during their time at the camps. One example being while him, his father, and many other prisoners are traveling to … Elie witnesses a man beat his own father to death for a piece of bread (96). Another example being Rabbi Eliahou’s son abandoned his father in order to focus and ensure on his own survival. Elie, upon seeing this, vows to a God he no longer believes in to give him the strength to not betray his father in such a way, “My God, give me strength never to do
Before Elie’s hometown got invaded, he was extremely religious. He used to pray and feel the presence of God all around him causing him to shed tears of joy and even began
Due to the atrocities of the concentration camps, Elie lost his faith in God. Early on in the story, Elie used to leap over ancient temples and study the Kabbalah. In his old town, he used to complain to Moishe the Beadle “ I told him how unhappy I was not to able to find in Sighet a master to teach me the Zohar.”(Wiesel,5) This shows him complaining about not having a teacher. But as he started to go through the camps, he saw what was going on and started to
Eliezer’s book Night depicts the life of a father and a son going through immeasurable, suffering and testing their bond as a family.
Eliezer thinks of his own father and prays, “Oh God, Master of the Universe, give me the strength never to do what Rabbi Eliahu’s son has done” (Wiesel 91). He didn’t want to admit it but he could already feel his father falling behind. He feared that there may come a time when he would have to choose between his father and his own survival, and that was a choice he didn’t want to make. That choice came one night after being transferred by train to another camp. Once off the train they waited in the snow and freezing wind to be shown to their quarters.
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
Instead of brushing this feeling off, he decided to face this feeling and wanted to help his father more by finding him some soup. This action shows that Elie is not a brute because he is still capable of feeling empathy and compassion towards his father.
During their journey, Elie loses his father due to illness however does not feel much emotion. After witnessing his own die, Elie “did not weep” and “deep inside me, if I could have searched the recesses of my feeble conscience, I might have found something like: Free at last!...” (Wiesel 112). While going through the camp Buna, Elie and his father had develops a strong relationship with one another. However, after his father’s death, Elie “did not weep” and displays very little towards the event. Elie had felt that his father was a liability for his own survival and did not feel the need to weep over his death. Elie also states that he was “Free at last” showing that throughout the course of the novel Elie had thought as his father as pulling him back from survival. The reason for Elie feels this way is because Elie is still on his journey and his primary goal is to survive through the camps. Elie has become quite desperate through his journey of survival and searches the “recesses of my feeble conscience” for his most inner thoughts. Throughout the novel, Elie had been storing these thoughts in the back of mind. These thoughts include him thinking of his father as liability and him being free from him. At their first arrival at the camps, Elie and his father had been very close to one another going through their journey of survival. However, after
Elie's genuine belief in God helps him before being sent away to the concentration camps. On an average day-to-day basis, Elie "studied Talmud and by night ...would run to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the Temple" (p.3). He is committed to his studies of Jewish mysticism and from this, is passionate about religion and God Himself. By embedding his life into God and religion, Elie puts his sense of comfort and security into Him, as well as his complete faith. Elie's faith in God is ...
In the book Night, Elie’s father was very ill and he desperately needs help from his son. His father asked for water and wanted to talk with his son, but Elie refused to talk with him and give him some water. Also, he remained calm when his father was harassed by the guards. In the book, Elie said “Then I had to go to sleep”(Wiesel 112) and after his father’s death, the thing he said wasn’t about his sadness. It was about his freedom. He said, “Free at last”(Wiesel 112). Elie is not the old Elie anymore. Because of the circumstance of the camp, the pure and caring boy changed into a boy with an empty heart. Elie says “Since father's death, nothing mattered to me anymore”(Wiesel 113). His heart that was filled with joy and caring
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.
Having a supportive father can help one drive for success. At the beginning of Night Elie’s bond with his father is weak but
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...
In the beginning of the memoir, Elie is an extremely passionate and devout Jew, but as the story progresses, Elie sees horrendous things in the concentration camps, and as a result, he slowly loses his faith. Elie displays his extreme devotion in the beginning stages of the memoir when he states, “By day I studied Talmud and by night I would run to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the Temple. I cried because something inside me felt the need to cry” (Wiesel 4). Elie is clearly very fond of learning more about his religion and connecting to God in a spiritual way. Furthermore, Elie is only thirteen years old, so when he says he cries because he feels the need to cry, he is exhibiting incredible passion. Elie reveals signs of change and begins to lose his faith in God just a few moments after arriving at the concentration camp when he says, “Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes” (Wiesel 34). Elie exclaims that he cannot worship God anymore due to the awful things he has seen at Auschwitz. He does not want to believe in the being that could have allowed these awful events to happen. This is a completely different Elie from the loving and caring Elie in the ghetto. Elie also uses rep...
This new behavior lead him to develop new character traits. While Ellie was in the concentration camp he became angry at many things, for example “I would have dug my nails into the criminals flesh” (Wisel 39). Elie shows extreme anger when the Nazi officials are beating Elie’s father. Elie was angry because the Nazi soldiers were not treating them nicely and putting them in poor conditions. Elie is usually not a person for anger but he shows this when his family members are being hurt. Elie wants to stand up for what is right and for his family members. Despite his studying, Elie wavered in his belief in Kabbalah while he was at the camp. In the book Elie says, “‘Where are You, my God?’” (66). Elie is wondering why God is not helping the Jews. Elie had complete faith in his religion until now, when he is starting to question his beliefs. He had learned that God will punish evil and save the righteous. However, when Elie saw that God was not helping the Jews situation then asked himself the question, “Is God real?”. Elie became worried because he felt he had lost a companion that always seemed by his side at all times. He lost hope. While Elie was in the camp he had changed the way he acted towards his Dad. Before Elie was sent to the camp Elie had a love hate relationship with his dad. However while they were in the camp together they became closer. Elie showed this when, “I tightened my grip on my
...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.