Dehumanization In Night By Elie Wiesel

Elie Wiesel, a young and naive Jewish boy in the novel Night, is unfortunately entangled in the dark, inhumane atrocities of the Holocaust during the period of World War II, losing his family in the process. To his demise, he turns the last of his hope to God in search of any sign of progress in the favor of the Jewish prisoners, gaining nothing in return for his once undying fidelity. Throughout his experience in various camps, Elie encounters both individuals akin to himself and those with vastly different perceptions of society. Due to these clashing ideologies, his mindset began to diverge in two: questioning higher powers and self-preservation. His people were in a forced regression of dehumanization as the Nazi Germans enact a policy

During the public hangings, Elie had traumatizingly listened to the outcries of reactions from the prisoners as they searched for the Lord in vain. At the beginning of the story, Moishe the Beadle explains to Elie how “Man comes closer to God through the questions he asks Him…Man asks and God replies. But we don't understand His replies. We cannot understand them” (Wiesel, 5). One's link to Him is able to be strengthened through prayers and questions that are directed to God. Elie utilizes this concept to highlight his point of challenging God—Why should he respect and bow down to someone who turns a blind eye to the torment of their most loyal followers? “‘For God’s sake, where is God?’ And from within me, I heard a voice answer: ‘Where He is? This is where— hanging here from this gallows…’” (Wiesel, 65). Compared with the quote above, Elie takes Moishe’s advice into consideration, displaying how he had “received” God’s answer in the form of death, struggling to clearly comprehend the messages and voices in his head. Because of his gradual isolation from religion, Elie perceives Him as a burden to his life and individuality. The more he expects a sign of hope, it’s immediately replaced with, what he deems as, the intensified gullibility and eradication of imprisoned Jews. As others begin to suspect the absence of divinity within the darkness of their current lives, he acknowledges the fact that there’s no bother in having any more hope. The weight of Him had brewed just enough to push Elie to the point of experiencing the “death” of God in the cold eyes of the hanging bodies. This conflagration of emotions ignites a strong incentive for his dissonance to faith, all while he reluctantly refuses to completely give up a large portion of his identity. Shortly after witnessing the cruelty