The Role Of Faith In Elie Wiesel's Night

Night is a memoir by Elie Weisel about his life and experiences during the Holocaust. The book starts by describing Elie and his family 's everyday life before laws that restricted the rights of Jews are created and they were moved to ghettos. Elie stayed in Auschwitz, then moved to Buchenwald. He lived in concentration camps from 1944, until April of 1945 when the Buchenwald was liberated. Throughout his experiences, and the memoir, Elie’s view of God changed and affected his identity.

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 first hanging, the Warsaw native who had been in the camp for three years, was fully grown and filled with defiance towards his German captors. He showed no fear of his executors, refused to be blindfolded and before his death, shouted out his denunciation of the action being taken. On page 62 of Night by Elie Wiesel it states “The hangman...was about to signal his aides to pull the chair from under the young man's feet when the latter shouted, in a strong and calm voice: "Long live liberty! My curse on Germany! My curse! My -" The executioner had completed his work.” This opinion of the Germans was shared by Elie and the other prisoners. They agreed with the condemnation of the prisoner and celebrated someone expressing these thoughts.

Within this barbarous world, there are innumerable accounts of devastating events that have occurred in the past, and continue to occur; these occurrences periodically cause us to question the existence of God. Overall, this statement proves to be correct to ill-fated Eliezer Wiesel. This brave child was exceedingly religious, as well as he had a strong hunger to be closer with God. Previous to being transferred to Auschwitz, he believed that as long as his family stuck together, everything would work out to be well. Throughout all his time in the concentration camp, he started to lose his faith after discovering the horrid ways of the camp. In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie is devoted to his faith, he starts to question God’s existence after witnessing the cruelty at Auschwitz.

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.

Certain fears prevent others from causing a certain action in life, avoiding to be next to something or someone, or fear can get to a point to make someone remain silent. Meanwhile, silence is something that many people don’t consider that important. Maybe silence may not be a big deal. But in reality, silence is something that can mean a lot and can affect others in many ways over time. During the Holocaust, many of the Jews have noticed that they have changed over time. As much as Jew’s wanted to speak for themselves, or even save others, this wasn’t possible due to their fear of winning them causing silence. In the Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night, shows how Wiesel’s experience was during this harsh time in his life as a teenager. During this experience, Wiesel discovers how others, also including him, decided to remain silent as a result of their fear, causing some choices to be avoided and not made. To sum up, Wiesel’s experience portrays that fear always wins and causes others to be silent.

In the book Night, we the readers witness the hardships and struggles in Elie’s life during the traumatic holocaust. The events that take place in this story are unbearable and are thought to be demented in modern times. In the beginning Elie is shown as a normal teenage Jewish boy, but the events are so drastic that we the readers forget how he was like in the beginning. Changes were made to Elie during the book, whether they were minor or major. The changes generated from himself, the journey, and other people. The holocaust makes physical and mental alterations to Elie’s life, and this tells the reader that the people who did this are effective and impacting, also it shows that Elie’s mind is controlled by what he was experiencing.

Elie Wiesel suspects that God is letting him go through such a situation. Wiesel begins losing faith in God. For example, Wiesel stated,”What are you, my God? I thought angrily. How do you compare to this stricken mass gathered to affirm to you their faith, their anger, their defiance?....Why do you go on troubling these poor people’s wounded minds, their ailing bodies?”(Wiesel 68) Wiesel clearly is losing faith in God because he has seen babies burned alive, families killed together. Wiesel blames God for what has happened. Additionally, Elie Wiesel is not thankful for God anymore because he is not in Auschwitz helping him and the rest of the Jews. Wiesel feels anger towards God. For instance, Wiesel claimed, “For the first time, I felt anger rising within 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) Wiesel wants God help him. He wants God to speak to him and help escape the Hell he is living. Wiesel isn’t thankful for God being silent and feels nothing but anger towards him. To sum up, loss of faith is another theme in Night that shows

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.

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

“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.

Imagine believing so strongly in something and then being let down, or thinking that you were wrong to believe. In Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie felt as though he had lost his religion and beliefs. “I believed profoundly. During the day I studied the Talmud, and at night I ran to the synagogue to weep of the destruction of the Temple,” (Wiesel, 14). This quote shows how strongly he believed before experiencing the hardships of the Holocaust and it changed him. In the book, Night, the main theme, is religion and belief which is shown when Elie talks about the his strong religion and belief as a boy, his disconnection from religion, and the inhumane actions the Nazi 's caused.

Imagine believing so strongly in something and then being let down, or thinking that you were wrong even to believe. In Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie felt as though he had lost his religion and belief in God. We learned how strong his beliefs were when he says,“I believed profoundly. During the day I studied the Talmud, and at night I ran to the synagogue to weep of the destruction of the Temple,” (Wiesel, 14). But then he experiences the hardships of the Holocaust and it abruptly changed him. In the book Night, the main theme is religious belief, shown when Elie talks about the his strong religion and belief as a boy, his disconnection from religion, and the inhumane actions the Nazis caused.

“Yes, you can lose somebody overnight, yes, your whole life can be turned upside down. Life is short. It can come and go like a feather in the wind.”- Shania Twain. At times, it appears unviable for one’s life to transform overnight in just a few hours. However, this is something various individuals experienced in soul and flesh as they were impinged by those atrocious memoirs of the Holocaust. In addition, the symbolism portrayed throughout the novel Night, written by Elie Wiesel, presents an effective fathoming of the feelings and thoughts of what it’s like to undergo such an unethical circumstance. For instance, nighttime plays a symbolic figure throughout the progression of the story as its used to symbolize death, darkness of the soul,

In chapters 4 to 6 in the novel, “Night”, Elie Wiesel and his father continue to suffer in the grasp of the Germans. Eventually, all the Jews are moved to a new work camp, Buna, where they are overworked and undernourished, and resort to killing each other for pieces of bread.