When all hope is lost and it seems as if nothing mattered anymore, society is left with nothing but their family, faith and the unknown future. As the Jews of the Holocaust experienced the horrid acts of humanity, many were stripped of their true identity and fought for survival, abandoning their connection with family and faith. One of the Jews, Elie Wiesel, survived the horrors to retell his testimony of how the concentration camps wiped him of his faith, leaving only his father and a bitter, yet life-changing journey. Throughout Elie Wiesel’s novel, Wiesel has an unbreakable bond with his faith but has a distant connection to his father, yet after experiencing the horrors of Auschwitz, his faith deteriorates while he grows closer to his …show more content…
To illustrate this, Wiesel conveys, “And Moishe the Beadle … spoke to me for hours on end about the Kabbalah’s revelations and its mysteries. Thus began my initiation. Not to learn it by heart but to discover the very essence of divinity”. From this excerpt, the reader can tell how embedded Wisel is towards his studies of Jewish mysticism. Not only does he read the Kabbalah to learn it, he also wants to discover the “essence of divinity” within his studies. By and large, the reader is able to gain a sense of Wiesel’s pride towards his faith and how much it plays a role in his life. To further illustrate, Wiesel states, “My father was a cultured man, rather unsentimental. He rarely displayed his feelings, not even within his family, and was more involved with the welfare of others”. In this quote, the reader can infer how isolated Wiesel was from the everyday life of his father. As stated, his father was rather “unsentimental”, implying his solemn nature. Since his father was more involved with the welfare of others, it can inferred that Wiesel does not spend much of his time with his father due to his busy life and that is why he doesn’t have a very pronounced connection to his father. Overall, with the Holocaust not into play yet, Wiesel is shown living an accustomed life with a strong commitment to his faith and a distant relationship with his occupied
wiesel look on his father changes as far as saying “If only I were relieved of this responsibility, I could use all my strength to fight for my own survival. Take care of only myself… (wiesel, 106)” The last thing his father says is “Eliezer… (wiesel, 111)” and wiesel doesn’t answer. He says his father was taken away at dawn. After his father dies he only says “Free at last!…
Wiesel is aware that most of the viewers are knowledgeable of the fact that he is a Holocaust survivor, and to emphasize this, he discusses his personal experience of those horrific times. This is beneficial to building his credibility because of the emotional context his experiences hold; the emotion will hook the audience’s attention and will cling them to his words. The first personal experience he discusses is the time young Wiesel was freed. “Fifty-four years ago to the day, a young Jewish boy from a small town…was finally free, but there was no joy in his heart.” (Wiesel pg.
In the awful conditions that Wiesel had endured, death was a common wish; but Wiesel had to live for his father. In this we see a constant struggle with himself between what he wishes for himself, and what
Wiesel does not recognize and cannot identify as the person he sees before him, because his identity was stolen from him. We have all heard the saying that we are all unique and special in our own way, and how no two people are the same. We spend years developing our identity, and becoming our own person, because all of us start out the same way: a small, helpless, and vulnerable infant. Our identity is defined by many things, but usually one main thing stands out from the rest. Wiesel, for example, was devoted to his God, and when he lost faith, he was torn apart.
Written from the perspective of a teenager, Elie Wiesel explained his experience during World War II and the Holocaust. Eliezer grew up in the small transylvanian town, Sighet, located in Hungarian Transylvania. Before the war, Eliezer was very religious and would often go to the synagogue to pray. Eliezer would frequently involve himself with religious stating, “I continued to devote myself to my studies, Talmud during the day and Kabbalah at night”(Wiesel 8). Eliezer would talk with Moishe the Beadle about religion and the Kabbalah.
In the beginning of the novel, Wiesel featured as a dedicated young jewish boy—filled with a promising faith. He appeared in this specific sense because, he presented all his hopes and goals to God. “ By day I studied Talmud and by night I would run to the synagogue….” This shows us that, although Wiesel was kept busy with his other surroundings, he always tried to be involved in something religious.
Young Elie Wiesel spent his time studying the Talmud and dreamt to one-day study the Cabala. Throughout the novel we learn about his experience as a young Jewish boy fighting between life and death everyday as a victim of the Holocaust. During his time in the concentration camp, where he is incarcerated with his father, he witnesses things that he had never experienced before, both emotionally and mentally. In this novel, Wiesel along with many other Jewish people lose their faith in God and Wiesel realizes that when people are faced with protecting their own mortality, they abandon their morals and values.
For example, "For the first time, I felt anger rising inside me. Why should I sanctify His name? The Almighty, the eternal and terrible Master of the Universe chose to be silent. What was there to thank Him for?(Wiesel 33)" Although Wiesel was hungry to learn more about his faith during the beginning of the book, his time as a captive made him question what he knew.
Elie Wiesel Rhetorical Speech Analysis Elie Wiesel, a holocaust survivor and winner of a Nobel peace prize, stood up on April 12, 1999 at the White House to give his speech, “The Perils of Indifference”. In Wiesel’s speech he was addressing to the nation, the audience only consisted of President Clinton, Mrs. Clinton, congress, and other officials. The speech he gave was an eye-opener to the world in his perspective. Wiesel uses a variety of rhetorical strategies and devices to bring lots of emotion and to educate the indifference people have towards the holocaust. “You fight it.
Wiesel changes vastly throughout the book, whether it is his faith in God, his faith in living, or even the way his mind works. In the beginning of his memoir, Wiesel appeared to be faithful to God and the Jewish religion, but during his time in concentration camps, his faith in God wavered tremendously. Before his life was corrupted, he would praise God even when he was being transferred to Auschwitz, but after living in concentration camps, he began to feel rebellious against his own religion. In the book, Elie
In the memoir Night, the narrator Elie Wiesel recounts a moment when he questioned God, ¨Blessed be God’s name? Why, but why would I bless him? Every fiber in me rebelled, he caused thousands of children to burn his Mass graves?¨(Wiesel 68). Overall, Wiesel does not follow the words of God and is not believing in him anymore because he thinks God is the one thatś letting all the inhumanity occur. One theme in Night is that inhumanity can cause disbelief or incredulity.
My head was buzzing; the same thought surfacing over and over: not to be separated from my father” (Wiesel 35). Wiesel and his father
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. In the beginning, all of the Jews are more or less equally faithful in their God and religion.
Within all of Elie Wiesel’s short novel, “Night”, numerous amounts of symbols represent the hopelessness of the Jews that readers witness as they understand the true pain and suffering experienced during the Holocaust. Faith plays a role in everyone’s life, whether that be one who is highly into their beliefs or not; Elie Wiesel is no exception. Faith is a symbol of strength and perseverance, but throughout Elie’s interminable labors within the camps, he put his faith into question. In Elie’s mind, he was becoming emotionally devastated and in turn giving up hope in his Lord. Within the words of Wiesel’s short novel, “Night”, Wiesel said, “. . .
Night is an autobiography by Elie Wiesel in which he shares his story about his experience as a Jewish boy during the holocaust. Wiesel explains the absolute terror and tragedy in a way that no other had before, maybe because every bit was true. The book was originally published in Yiddish in 1956 by an unknown publisher and published in English in 1960 by Hill & Wang. Wiesel begins at the breakout of the holocaust, yet no one knew it yet. At this time, Elie was a normal Jewish teenager living in Hungarian Transylvania.