Ever since humans came to be, they have done many things to ensure their survival. It’s the reason why we humans have evolved as much as we have. Humans have invented devices, accomplished many challenges, and have even relied on nothing but willpower to survive.
Distractions are used to overcome traumatic events, to motivate survival. The story of Night by Elie Wiesel depicts his journey, beginning from a free life in Sighet, Transylvania during World War II. He, along with his family and the other Jews of Sighet are placed in ghettos then transported to concentration camps. Separated from his mother and sister, Elie strives to find a way to survive alongside his father. He recounts his experiences under Nazi German oppression from his imprisonment in Auschwitz to his liberation in Buchenwald. Elie survives the Holocaust through a battle of conscience – first believing in God, then resisting his faith in God, and ultimately replacing his faith with obligation to his father.
In the beginning of Elie’s experience, he gets the choice to abandon the ghetto and go with the family’s former maid to a safe shelter. He chose to stay because Elie would have been separated from his parents and little sister. This choice had a negative impact, but also a positive one. The negative side is that Elie’s family stayed in the ghettos, and then the concentration camps. At the time, no one could believe the rumors about the Nazis. For this reason the Elie wouldn’t have known about the extreme horror that was lying ahead for his entire family. This choice positively impacted the author’s life by not being separated from his father. “Naturally, we refused to be separated” (20). Hypothetically, if Elie left with his sisters, his father would have no motivation to survive by not knowing if his family is
Elie’s relationship with his dad over the course of the story changed drastically. The quote, “My father was running left to right exhausted, consoling friends,” (pg 15) shows the reader that Elie 's father tried to keep everyone calm, which means he always did the same for Elie. That shows they had a strong relationship at the start of the story. Accordingly, the quote, “Father! Father! Wake up, they’re going to throw you out the side!” (pg 99) shows the reader that midway through the story Elie still really cared about his father and did not want him to die. He still had hope that his dad could survive. However, this quote at the end of the story, “I no longer thought of my father,” (pg 113) showed that he lost all hope and only thought about himself and his own health due to the circumstances. Also, Elie was not the only son going through
During all of the struggles Elie gains a bit of life knowledge, and learns more emotions about himself. If this journey never happened Elie would still be focussing about his studies and not about his family. A fact Elie acquires during the holocaust is always to stay positive in hard times. An example of this is when Elie is running for miles and notices men giving up just makes Elie think about when he can sleep and eat at the next camp. When news comes that the Russians will save the prisoners, Elie keeps this as a positive and keeps thinking this horrifying journey will be over. Elie also impacts himself by being scared of letting go of his father, and by feeling this way it makes Elie stronger and pushes his father forward. Even though Elie’s father died, Elie still continued on with his hope of reaching the end of the awful journey. Strong is a word to Elie inherited because he kept believing in living even though he had nothing to live
World War II had been raging for two years and was bout to enter Sighet. The Germans attempted to commit genocide on the 'lesser ' races, particularly Jews. Through the brutality witnessed, acts of selfishness, the death of his father, and the loss of his faith, Elie changed. Elie became a young man with a strong sense of mortality through it all. By the end of the war, Elie claimed to see himself as "A corpse contemplating me." (Night, 115).
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
In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, Eliezer Wiesel narrates the legendary tale of what happened to him and his father during the Holocaust. In the introduction, Wiesel talks about how his village in Seghet was never worried about the war until it was too late. Wiesel’s village received advanced notice of the Germans, but the whole village ignored it. Throughout the entire account, Wiesel has many traits that are key to his survival in the concertation camps. Eliezer’s best traits come out and allow him to survive his terrible ordeal, which are adaptability, determination, patience, and perseverance. Elie uses his father as his reason to persevere and keep on going through.
families. Night, a memoir by Elie Wiese,l is the story of a young Jewish boy and his family going through dehumanizing situations in Concentration Camps. In those situations the father-son relationship it grew stronger each time. The relationship progresses from to almost nothing to never wanting to be separate from each other to feeling relief and guilt.
Dehumanization is the process in which a person is deprived of their human qualities. The Nazis often used this practice on the Jews and other victims of the Holocaust as these people were stripped of their humanity, and many examples of this can be found in the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel. “Humanity? Humanity is not concerned with us. Today anything is allowed. Anything is possible, even with these crematories…”(Wiesel 15). This quote showcases the absence of humanity in concentration camps. The Nazis valued the lives of the Jews so little that they threw the Jews into fires and gas chambers without any regard that those were human lives. The prisoners were denied of their basic human right, life. They were no longer humans, but instead they were corpses. While some Jews’ lives were immediately taken by the Nazis at the entrance to the camps, the ones who stayed alive were who suffered
Elie 's inaction or inability to help his father and his guilt for not doing so helped Elie to shape the person he has become now is because he kept on realizing his stand on the situation on the harsh behavior towards his father.As he starts to live more with his father he became started to realize how important he was to him and how important he is for him.In the book Night, Chapter 7, when Elie and his after were on the cattle car he said"My father had huddled near me, draped in his blanket, shoulders laden with snow. And what if he were dead as well? I called out to him. No response. I would have screamed if I could have. He was not moving"(98).This is an example of how Elie cared about his father and he is feared that he would lose him.Over
Empathy; the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. An admirable trait, it often coincides with one's resilience. In Elie Wiesel’s Night, he recounts his experiences as a young man during the Holocaust. It is a journey of suffering and survival, where the true devastation of the Holocaust is brought to light. Elies great empathy for his father shaped his resilience which allowed him to survive.
Imagine knowing your fate ahead of time. That single moment would be stuck in your head, replayed every second to prevent it. This would obstruct your feeling of morals, making you only focus on your own survival. Nothing would get in your way of trying to survive. During the Holocaust, many people were faced with this moment when they stepped in a concentration camp. Elie Wiesel, the author of Night, describes the horrors of focusing on your own survival. Certain acts provoke inhumane acts throughout the ordeal. A central theme in Night is, even though it’s difficult, people should value compassion over their own survival.
Johann Schiller once said “It is not flesh and blood, but the heart which makes us fathers and sons”. But what happens when the night darkens our hearts our hearts? The Holocaust memoir Night does a phenomenal job of portraying possibly the most horrifying outcomes in such a situation. Through subtle and effective language, Wiesel is able to put into words the fearsome experiences he and his father went through in Auschwitz during the Holocaust. In his holocaust memoir, Night, Elie Wiesel utilizes imagery to show the effect that self-preservation can have on father son relationships. Wiesel addresses not only his own situation, but also the effect survival had inwards other fathers and sons in the camp. The memoir
Your existence is special, so you should be grateful for what you already have in life. If you put your mind to something, you will be able to overcome any obstacle. Keep fighting until you cannot fight any longer. Elie Wiesel has demonstrated these characteristics in his novel, “Night.” He has fought through many tough times and experiences when he was in the Holocaust. Elie was held captive in concentration camps from 1944-1945. During his time in the concentration camps, he became grateful for what he had, overcame countless obstacles, and more importantly kept fighting until he was free. [The Holocaust is very important to learn about because it can teach you some important life lessons.]