Analysis Of Night By Elie Wiesel

First, the reader views Wiesel’s personality changes as a result of life in Auschwitz. Perhaps the most obvious change is his steadily increasing disinterest of religion. Before his internment, Wiesel demonstrates a growing interest in the religion of his parents. During the day, he studied Talmud, a legal commentary on the Torah, or the Jewish Ten Commandments. At night, he would worship at the synagogue, “to weep over the

Before Elie was sent to the Auschwitz Concentration Camp, he displayed positive character traits. He was faithful, courageous, and smart. In the beginning, Wiesel states, “He had watched me one day as I prayed at dusk” (4) Elie was talking to Moishe the Beadle (teacher in Sighet) and was not afraid to express his faith. Obviously, Elie was faithful because he was praying. In addition, this showed that he was also very passionate about his faith and did not care if people knew if he was Jewish. Elie had this trait before he was sent to Auschwitz, and he made his faith the top priority. Elie’s faith was an outlet for him, and he was a very positive person because of it. Further into his stay at the Auschwitz concentration camp, Elie started to let his faith drift away, leaving him with almost nothing. Next, Wiesel says, “There could no longer be any doubt: Germany would be defeated. It was only a matter of time, months, weeks perhaps.” (8) Elie and his family were getting worried about the Nazi’s invading many Jewish homes. Elie became very confident about the situation and told himself that the Germans would be defeated. Confidence was deeply displayed in this piece of text evidence because he begins to make it a fact that the Germans would lose the war and everything would be okay. Elie’s confidence was a big part of his positive personality before he was in the camp because it gave him hope. Elie has a complete change of heart once he is in the death camp for a while and becomes very hopeless. Lastly, Wiesel explains, “I continued to devote myself to my studies, Talmud during the day and Kabbalah at night.” (8) Elie listened to the radio and heard that there were bombings from Germany and

Night by Elie Wiesel remains a shocking and terrifying memoir of a survivor of the Holocaust, the murders of six million Jews and five million Gentiles. Elie, a victim of this dreadful event, was forced to separate from his family, and to miss the life he once had. Elie transformed into a unrecognizable, scarred person by the end of his journey. Elie’s traumatizing experiences in the concentration camps of Auschwitz affected him significantly; he changed both spiritually and in his relationship with his father.

Eliezer hears a rabbi ask desperately, “Where is the divine Mercy? How can I believe, how could anyone believe, in this merciful God.”(Wiesel 73) Wiesel no longer knows what to have faith in anymore. He’s hoping for any proof of God, any validation that the God he used to pray to would help him, but always ends up disappointed. Wiesel is feeling extremely desperate and betrayed, especially when he heard that Rabbi Eliahou had lost faith. When seeing that Rabbi Eliahou’s son tried to get rid of his father “in spite of [himself], a prayer rose in [Eliezer’s] heart, to the god in whom [he] no longer believed in.”(Wiesel 87) Although Wiesel continues to claim that he no longer believes in God, a small part of him still hopes that he is out there and will save Eliezer and the rest of the Jews. He feels reassurance and secureness when praying to God because it was an instinct and brought him back to the days where he was very devout. He still believes God is out there and will eventually help him in the end. Eliezer continues to believe that God is not merciful and good, but still turns toward him in times of difficulty.

Faith is like a little seed; if you think about the positive aspects of a situation, then it will grow, like a seed grows when you water it. However, if the seed does not receive water anymore, it will die, which serves as a parallel to the horrors and antagonism of the concentration camps that killed Elie’s faith. After the analysis of the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel, the reader can visualize the horrors and slaughter of millions of innocent people that occurred in concentration camps. Throughout the book, Wiesel explains how his faith in God was tested, as he was forced to leave his home, separated from his family, and observed the death all around him; he even witnessed children being thrown into huge ditches of fire alive. Elie felt abandoned, betrayed, and deceived by the God that he knew who was a loving and giving God. It was then he started to doubt His existence. Elie tried to hold on to his faith, but the childhood innocence had disappeared from within him, and he lost his faith in God completely.

In “Night,” the setting creates a cruel and depressing mood which helps the reader feel what it was like to live during the Holocaust. For example in chapter one he uses descriptive words that make it seem like the Nazis think that the Jewish people didn’t deserve a life. Once the Jewish get to the concentration camps the writing said “They were forced to dig huge trenches then they shot the prisoners” (Wiesel 6). That quote is saying that they were forced to dig their own grave when they arrived at the concentration camps, and then got shot and placed in the grave that they had just dug. In the writing i get the feeling that the Nazis thought the Jews were evil people because of the way they named the street that they lived on. In the text

There are people crowded, shoulder to shoulder, expecting a shower and to feel water raining down their bodies. Sighs of relief turn into screams of terror as innocent people are gasping for their last breaths of air inside of the gas chamber. This was a daily occurrence for Jewish and other people involved in the Holocaust. This was just one horrific event of many that had happened to women, men and children. Some of the survivors have used their voice to speak out about their own background during their time spent in Auschwitz and other concentration camps. Elie Wiesel, author of the book Night, is one of the many who did so. Wiesel talks about his personal experience and shares his feelings, thoughts and emotions that he went through with others during the Holocaust.

Each day,6,000 innocent lives were taken at Auschwitz-Birkenau,one of the many concentration camps in Europe. During the “Final solution” two out of every three European Jews were killed. This genocide lasted from 30 January,1933 to 8 May,1945. Elie Wiesel,a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust,shares his personal traumatic,faith breaking and experiences with inhuman treatment in his memoir, Night.

Elie’s faith before being exposed to the concentration camps is apparent and he works hard to strengthen and grow his faith. All throughout Night, Wiesel shows the eminent effect faith has on individual’s actions and attitude. At the beginning of Night, Elie’s faith is a key feature of his lifestyle and attitude. Studying under the wisdom of Moishe the Beadle, Elie can put his faith in retrospect as he says, “In the course of those evenings I became convinced that Moishe the Beadle would help me enter eternity, into that time when question and answer would become one” (Wiesel 5). It is very clear that Elie is very emotionally and physically invested in his faith. Before camp Elie was so eager to expand and connect to his faith in which he becomes, “convinced” that he fully understands his faith proving him to be a devout Jewish boy. Thus because, Moishe the Beadle is helping him “enter eternity” and build his faith. Elie’s whole life revolves

Thesis Statement: The hardships that Elie Wiesel faced in the concentration camps lead him to lose faith, until after when realizing it was crucial to keep faith in God despite the horrendous events of the Holocaust.

Elie and his father are taken to Auschwitz where they are separated from the rest of the family and first hear about atrocities such as the incinerators and gas showers. In the beginning Elie believes that everything is a rumor, a lie, that humankind cannot perform such crimes, but he soon is forced to witness the demise in front of his eyes. This is when his outlook on his faith starts to waver. While watching the smoke billow up from a crematory, Elie hears a man standing next to him begging him to pray, and for the first time in his life Wiesel turns away from God. “The Eternal, Lord of the Universe, the All-Powerful and Terrible, was silent. What had I to thank him for?” (31).

In his memoir, Night, author Elie Wiesel writes of his struggles for survival in the concentration camps during the Holocaust. He devotes a lot of his writing to a discussion of his experience in the loss of faith in God. He does this because he wants readers to realize how fragile one's belief can be. In the book, Elie starts off religious but loses his trust in God at the camp. He loses his trust but still prays to God when he has nothing to rely on. When God does nothing for him, he again stops believing in Him.

“Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself.” After World War I Germany had suffered great loss. Their economy was especially weak. The German people desperately seeked for a leader that could help them. Adolf Hitler had won over the people of Germany and gained control. Many thought he would be the one to save them. Hitler slowly began turning everyone against the Jews. He said the Jews were the ones to blame for their country’s problems. Hitler began sending them to concentration camps in order to exterminate them, this was known as the Holocaust. Between five to six million Jews were killed. Elie Wiesel experienced all of these horrors right in front of his very own eyes, alongside his father.

Though faithful as they enter the horrific camps of Auschwitz, Bergen Belsen, Buna, Birknau, Dachau, and Buchenwald, the Jews become capricious. They start losing grip and begin falling down the slippery slope of death the Germans set up for them as more horrors of the camps become unveiled. Soon after arriving in the camp and being told about the crematoria, he felt “anger rising with me [Elie]. Why should I sanctify His name? The Almighty, the eternal terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent” (33). This is the first time that his faith is challenged. After a few days in Auschwitz he “had ceased to pray. I [Elie] was not denying His existence, but doubted His absolute justice” (45). As seen, Elie is beginning to have doubts about God and therefore his belief and faith in him. Finally, when Elie is looking for God to come though he doesn’t and he asks,

His father did not think that Elie was old enough to participate in the teachings of the Cabbala, but Wiesel continued to learn behind his father’s back. When the Nazis deported the Jews, Wiesel’s strong faith begins to break. Separated from the women of their family, Wiesel tells, “already I felt the pressure of my father’s hand: we were alone” (27). As time in the camp wears on, Wiesel’s God seems to completely abandon him and his father. With His power being relinquished, Wiesel likens this abandonment to a court case, in which “I [Wiesel] was the accuser, God the accused” (Wiesel 65) . On Yom Kippur, a day where Jews would normally fast, Wiesel writes, “I did not fast, mainly to please my father, who had forbidden me to do so” (66). This small act of rebellion towards God helps keep Wiesel alive, with his father’s