It’s difficult to imagine the way humans brutally humiliate other humans based on their faith, looks, or mentality but somehow it happens. On the novel “Night” by Elie Wiesel, he gives the reader a tour of World War Two through his own eyes , from the start of the ghettos all the way through the liberation of the prisoners of the concentration camps. This book has several themes that develop throughout its pages. There are three themes that outstand from all the rest, these themes are brutality, humiliation, and faith. They’re the three that give sense to the reading.
‘Isnt it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back. Everything is different’ Quote by C.S Lewis
Faith is such an important part of life. It is the drive, the motive to live, to breathe, to feel. When faith is lost, so is the reason to exist; life is lost in oblivion. Faith is a truly powerful weapon and as the story of Eliezer 's life during the Holocaust is played out through this book, a first-hand perspective is gained of what someone can do to cause questioning of faith and how people respond, whether by strengthening faith or losing it entirely. Eliezer is hit with every hard trial imaginable within a year of his life and eventually withers and hardens into this completely new person than the boy he was when he first stepped into that cattle car expelling him from Sighet, his home, and life. When everything familiar is taken, doubt
In the book Night, Elie Wiesel recounts his experiences of the Holocaust. Throughout this experience, Elie Wiesel is exposed to life he previously thought unimaginable and they consequently change his life. He becomes
Freedom of religion is a fundamental human right that protects all people. Religions faith can be tested under certain circumstances, which can falter the relationship one can have with their God. In the memoir Night, by Elie Wiesel, the author creates the universal theme that religious faith is questioned and challenged during traumatic events. Throughout the story, we see many relationships with God scarcely survive, and some completely fail entirely. For the duration of the memoir, Wiesel uses plenty of narrative elements to help convey this theme. He uses plot and setting to help depict the situation the characters are in, and how that tests their relationship with God. He also uses
Every life knows tragedy. While some tragedies may be greater than others, it is tragedy all the same. In his book Night, Elis Wiesel brings light to one of the most tragic events in our history The Holocaust. Wiesel describes his torturous treatment in the concentration camps, a place which stole everything from him: his home, his family, and even his faith in God. After seeing people tortured, gassed, and burned, Wiesel states, “my eyes had opened and I was alone, terribly alone in the world without God, without man. Without love or mercy. I was nothing but ashes now, but I felt myself to be stronger than this Almighty to whom my life had been bound for so long. In the midst of these men assembled for prayer, I felt like an observer, a stranger”
Losing faith is like clearing off a foggy windshield. The true pain and suffering of the world are revealed. During the Holocaust, the SS would often force prisoners to witness the deaths of fellow prisoners, to scare them into obeying the SS and to show the prisoners what would happen to them if they did not follow orders. In the memoir Night, Elie Wiesel uses symbolism and metaphors to show the theme that suffering will weaken religious faith.
Religion is something that many people have consistently believed in and turned to in times of need and support. Some of these people rely on their faith more than their own family and friends. Their religion is their entire life and they can’t imagine their lives without it. Imagine a scenario that’s so terrible that God won’t take you out of it. These people will wonder where God is and pray for Him to come. After such a long time without help, these people will start to question their faith and eventually, they will rebel against it. In the memoir, Night by Elie Wiesel, a survivor of The Holocaust, Elie shows that faith is often lost in times of testing or trial.
In the book Night, Elie Wiesel experiences the Holocaust at the age of fifteen. This horrible event happened from 1933 to 1945. Elie, along with numerous other Jews, experience pain throughout the entirety of the book. The events that occur alter the way that the Jews think. This especially happened concerning the way they thought about their God. When the Jews were faced with the horrible occurrences from the Holocaust, their thoughts about God changed. This insinuates one thing. People’s thoughts concerning religion change with faced with difficult circumstances.
“You don’t understand...You cannot understand. I was saved miraculously. I succeeded in coming back. Where did I get my strength? I wanted to return to Sighet to describe to you my death so that you might ready yourselves while there is still time...I wanted to come back to warn you. Only no one is listening to me...This was towards the end of 1942”(7). The pattern of faith and belief in Elie Wiesel’s Night is intertwined with the pattern of denial the Jews have throughout the book. In Night, Wiesel has times where the Jews are very optimistic of situations they 're in, even though they shouldn’t be, and the reason for most of their optimism comes from their belief in a god, which is a curse and a blessing.
In the novel, “Night” Elie Wiesel communicates with the readers his thoughts and experiences during the Holocaust. Wiesel describes his fight for survival and journey questioning god’s justice, wanting an answer to why he would allow all these deaths to occur. His first time subjected into the concentration camp he felt fear, and was warned about the chimneys where the bodies were burned and turned into ashes. Despite being warned by an inmate about Auschwitz he stayed optimistic telling himself a human can’t possibly be that cruel to another human.
The Holocaust affects Jews in a way that seems unimaginable, and most of these effects seem to have been universal experiences; however, in the matter of faith, Jews in the concentration camp described in Elie Wiesel’s Night are affected differently and at different rates. The main character, Elie, loses his faith quickly after the sights he witnesses (as well as many others); other Jews hold on much longer and still pray in the face of total destruction.
The severely cruel conditions of concentration camps had a profound impact on everyone who had the misfortune of experiencing them. For Elie Wiesel, the author of Night and a survivor of Auschwitz, one aspect of himself that was greatly impacted was his view of humanity. During his time before, during, and after the holocaust, Elie changed from being a boy with a relatively average outlook on mankind, to a shadow of a man with no faith in the goodness of society, before regaining confidence in humanity once again later in his life.
How can extreme suffering change a person? Going through a German concentration camp causes many people to have life changing differences in their lives. Elie Wiesel tells his personal experience of going through a concentration camp in his book Night. He shares the horrific events that he, his father, and others had to experience. After going through so much, many people do not have the same mindset as they did before. Being tortured and watching others being tortured changes a person’s life, especially Elie’s, his father’s, Moshe the Beadle’s, and Rabbi Eliahou’s.
To find a man who has not experienced suffering is impossible; to have man without hardship is equally unfeasible. Such trials are a part of life and assert that one is alive by shaping one’s character. In the autobiographical memoir Night by Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, this molding is depicted through Elie’s transformation concerning his identity, faith, and perspective. As a young boy, Elie and his fellow neighbors of Sighet, Romania were sent to Auschwitz, a macabre concentration camp with the sole motive of torturing and killing Jews like himself. There, Elie experiences unimaginable suffering, and upon liberation a year later, leaves as a transformed person. His story displays how, though experiences affect decisions, it is the individual who chooses to either find purpose when there does not seem to be a clear objective, or allow one’s anguish to be fruitless. This concept is further explored with psychiatrist Viktor Frankl’s idea of logotherapy, and discussed in Elie’s interview with talk show host Oprah Winfrey decades after the Holocaust. In Night, Elie is overwhelmed by his suffering, as he experiences a deprivation of individuality, degradation of faith, and drainage of emotion, but he manages to find a way to channel this affliction into productivity and become a survivor rather than a victim.