It is a common belief that in times of turmoil love will be the strong point that allows us to live through the ‘dark’. However, Albert Camus and Elie Wiesel in their novellas The Stranger and Night challenge the idea that love will be the hero that saves all in the end. The authors create characters that gain and lose the love of family, community, and religion. They both start out on different paths, Eliezer a boy with family and love and all well, and Meursault, an existentialist. Yet, they both end on the same road.
Religion is a large force in the books, for whose love is the most forgiving, benevolent and easiest to achieve, God’s. However, religion in Camus’ and Wiesel’s worlds is a factor of isolation and a loss of faith for both characters. Eliezer, in Sighet, is very religious, goes to the Synagogue with everyone and stays later with Moishe the Beadle learning the Kabbalah. At the beginning he feels that he is “deeply observant” as Moishe gives him an insight into the more mystic side of religion, giving him an ‘answer’ to God and how things work. “Man comes closer to God through the questions he asks Him, [he liked to say] Therein lies true dialogue. Man asks and God replies. But we don’t understand His replies… The real answers, [Eliezer], you will find only within yourself” (Wiesel, p.5). This quotation shows us a view of God, we do not understand God, yet we know he is there and he is benevolent. At this stage Eliezer feels a close love and bond towards God. There is no experience with the evils of the world therefore there are no evils in the world. Once at the concentration camps he sees everything, and that view quickly changes, at first they believe that “God is testing” them. The longer the stay the lower the ...
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...e your own is holding you down.
By the end of both novellas, Night and The Stranger, the protagonists Meursault and Eliezer have lost their humanity, they are only empty shells of the men they once were or could have been. One tried to hold onto love through his journey in the Night, and ended up losing everything. The other tried to push away everything in life, and not hold onto any meaning however only when faced with the end could he truly let go of life and ‘accept the nothingness’. Are Elie and Albert’s view on love correct? Is love just a wistful wish that we cling onto to try and protect ourselves or is it just a weight that in the end doesn’t give any shelter, useless and worn with overuse.
Bibliography:
Camus, Albert. The Stranger. New York: Everyman's Library, 1993. Print.
Wiesel, Elie. Night: Elie Wiesel. New York: HIll and Wang, 2006. Print.
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
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Every man, woman, and child has his or her breaking point, no matter how hard they try to hold it back. In Night by Elie Wiesel the main theme of the entire book is the human living condition. The quality of human life is overwhelming because humans have the potential to make amazing discoveries that help all humans. Elie Wiesel endures some of the most cruel living conditions known to mankind. This essay describes the themes of faith, survival, and conformity in Night by Elie Wiesel.
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A simple act of kindness and support can possibly be the savior to someone else’s misery. In the novel, Night, written by Eliezer Wiesel, Elie portrays the daily lifestyle of the Jews during the Holocaust, and shares his personal experiences. He goes through hardships as he travels from the ghettos to the concentration camps with his one and only family member remaining, his father. The S.S. soldiers take the author’s mother and his two sisters away from him as they arrive at the ghetto because they separating women from men. Throughout the novel, Elie experiences personality adaptations and loses his faith in God all due to the loss of humanity in his world. With this in mind, he bases his survival on his determination and not his luck. Eliezer survives the Holocaust as a result to the hope he provides for his father and the support he receives from others throughout his journey.
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.
To many people religion is a sanctuary. It helps them escape the chaos of their normal lives and become a part of something much bigger. For Jews during the Holocaust, religion helped them survive at first. They remained adamant that God would not allow the genocide of millions of his people. But as time went on, they began to question the existence of god. Elie witnesses the death of one of the inmates Akiba Drumer; recalling, "He just kept repeating that it was all over for him, that he could no longer fight, he had no more strength, no more faith" (76). Many people live for religion; they go on with their lives and no matter how horrific the situation may be, they remain resilient of the fact that god will pull them through any situation. But when this faith is lost, people begin to question their existence. Jewish people grow up knowing that God would always be at their side. The realization that God was not there for them took its toll. Elie loses his faith in God...
After being forced into concentration camps, Elie was rudely awakened into reality. Traumatizing incidents such as Nazi persecution or even the mistreatment among fellow prisoners pushed Elie to realize the cruelty around him; Or even the wickedness Elie himself is capable of doing. This resulted in the loss of faith, innocence, and the close bonds with others. 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.
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...
French author and playwright Albert Camus once said, “He who despairs over an event is a coward, but he who holds hope for the human condition is a fool.” In the The Stranger and The Guest this philosophy is expanded on by demonstrating how those who do not conform to society are isolated, and portrayed as a threat to society because of their unique beliefs.
...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.