Examples Of Conflict In Elie Wiesel

Deep Conflict

Elie is faced with decisions that will change his very outlook on life. Elie is conflicted with himself, trying to hold onto his faith. Elie’s distrust for the Nazis pressures him to leave Auschwitz on a relentless journey with the Nazis. Elie’s father is giving in to Death and Elie has to decide for himself if he will help his father to survive or let him pass. In world war two, the Nazis and the concentration camps they occupy were bred for one reason, to cripple the Jews and eliminate their kind. Elie loses a piece of himself when he gives up his faith. When Elie is younger he identifies himself with God, studying Jewish texts, like the Kabbalah, and he searches for a purpose through God’s will. After months of enduring Auschwitz, Elie states, ”Where he is? This is where, hanging here from this gallows…” (Page 65) He resents God for not acting, when the young boy was hung that was when God died. Elie’s whole being is about needing something to believe in, but now his God has chosen not to act and Elie turns his back against Him, cursing

Elie and his father firmly believed that if they stayed that Hitler would keep his promise and finish them off, so they marched. “We are the masters of nature, the masters of the world. We had transcended everything- death, fatigue, our natural needs.” (Page 87) Overpowering their will to live, they move sleepless through the night. Elie wants to give up, he ponders to himself about death and just letting the soldiers shoot him, his father is what keeps him fighting to live. “I had no right to let myself die. What would he do without me? I was his sole support.” (Page 87) For his father Elie would keep himself going; he knew that his father could not go on if he died, if Elie lived then there would be a chance that his father would too. Elie and his father’s bond of love and family was too great to break them