Essay on Existentialism in Night

Elie Wiesel’s autobiography Night is an account of the brutality of the Holocaust faced by Elie at the age of fourteen to fifteen and the horrors he endures. Night exposes much that is wrong with human nature and reveals little that is right. During the novel, he endures loss of faith as his experience within the Holocaust becomes more difficult. The elements wrong with human nature are represented by the novel, particularly the cruelty and the ignorance. The autobiography, however, only represents little that is right, such as the memory kept in order for the events never to happen again.

The book Night is a story of family, religion, violence, and hope. This book tells the story of Elie Wiesel’s journey through the holocaust. During the novel, Wiesel writes with the purpose of teaching us several lessons. This lesson is conveyed through Wiesel’s actions, other character’s actions, as well as quotations. The lesson Wiesel taught in Night is to persevere and never lose hope up no matter how hopeless the situation may seem.

In Elie Wiesel 's novel “Night,” we find the horrific life story of a father and son during the period of the devastating Holocaust. Elie and his father need to unite in order to survive through the excruciation. We find a transition of indifference by Elie during his Nobel Peace Prize. From his love for life to not caring about anything, Elie matures as the book progresses. He learns to value his father and stick together. In “Night,” Elie Weisel utilizes the fear of surviving in the concentration camps and allows himself to mature and undergoes the struggles which leave the future generations to witness and remember the atrocities of the Holocaust.

Night, written by Elie Wiesel, is a real life story of the hardships faced by a 15 year old Jew during World War 2. Elie Wiesel’s account of the genocide he faced embodies human natures at its weakest. Night illustrates the selfishness and indecencies that human beings are capable of when faced with the prospect of death. The Jews and prisoners were often self-centred, only able to think about themselves, and the Nazis also often degraded the people of the concentration camps.

“To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering” (Nietzsche). This quote, said by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, describes the desire to survive that was inside of Elie Wiesel in his story. The book describes Elie’s late teen years when he was sent to a concentration camp by the German government. In the book, he is separated from his whole family except for his old father, and both are put to work inside of the camp. As Elie suffers through the camp, his faith and his life face many tests and trials. There are many instances throughout the book when people die or when somebody loses their faith. The theme of the book Night, written by Elie Wiesel, is survival, as shown by the death of many Jews during the Holocaust, people willing to do anything to survive, and people’s faith not surviving the traumatic experiences of the concentration camps.

Early 1940s, an observant, young boy, and his caring father: the start to a story that would become known throughout the world of Eliezer Wiesel. His eye-opening story is one of millions born from the Holocaust. Elie’s identity, for which he is known by, is written out word for word his memoir, Night. Throughout his journey, Elie’s voice drifts from that of an innocent teen intrigued with the teachings of his religion to that of a soul blackened by a theoretical evil consuming that of the Nazis and Hitler’s Germany. Elie Wiesel's memoir, Night, examines the theme of identity through the continuous motifs of losing one’s self in the face of death and fear, labeling innocent people for a single dimension of what defines a human being, and

In the novel “Night” by Elie Wiesel the theme of self preservation and loss of identity plays a critical role in the development of Eliezer (Elie Wiesel) throughout the book. As Wiesel suffers through the tragic events of the holocaust, self preservation proves to be more difficult to keep and losing one’s character seems easy. Wiesel’s identity, faith, and his will to live start to fade as he begins to forms a new character, a character who remains silent. Losing identity means losing the values that makes up a character.

The memoir, Night, written by Elie Wiesel, talks about Elie, the main character, experiences life in several concentration camps and settings. The narrative starts off in Sighet, Elie’s hometown; however, Elie spends the most time at Auschwitz—a concentration camp in Poland overrun by the Nazis. Wiesel writes himself as the main character, a young Jewish boy about 14 years old. Elie not only struggles with abuse and starvation, he also struggles with his faith in God—questioning God’s justice—and himself as he goes through the concentration camps. Through Elie’s struggles, the author conveys that there was none or very little humanity left in the concentration camps. Human nature was very scarce with all the cruel treatment from the Nazis. Wiesel uses the symbols fire, bread, and eyes to convey and illustrate themes in the narrative.

Night by Elie Wiesel is a book about his personal life experiences with the Holocaust and the central theme of his book is his loss of religious faith. In the beginning of the book, Wiesel has strong devotion and love to God but it all changes as he experiences the Holocaust as a Jew. Throughout the book, we can see that Wiesel becomes extremely cynical about God and his religious beliefs. In the beginning of the book, Wiesel is shown to have strong loyalty with God.

A purpose in life is what individuals strive towards everyday, whether that be through faith in religion, humanity or something else. Back in the 1940s during the devastating Holocaust, where Jews were sent to their deaths, many questioned where their faith lied or if they had any at all. In this Holocaust memoir “Night”, Elie Wiesel’s growing relationship with his father balances his increasing disbelief in the God he once trusted, revealing the powerful human need for purpose.

Existentialism is a Humanism by Jean-Paul Sartre, was published in 1945 at the height of Existentialism's cultural resurgence. As Sartre states in his opening line, his purpose is to “offer a defence of existentialism against some charges that have been brought against it.” (Sartre, 1945) At a time where Existentialism was heavily associated with wearing black and smoking (Fahlenbrach, 2012) Sartre felt the need to draw attention to its philosophical and more meaningful aspects, beyond it simply being a passing trend. Sartre outlines, “Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself. That is the first principle of existentialism” (Sartre, 1945) This is rooted in what Sartre believes to be the basis of all Existential

Existentialism, a philosophical ideology conceptualized by Jean-Paul Sarte, encapsulates most thought processes where “the individual is obliged to make a choice as though he were choosing for all mankind” (Arnold, “Jean-Paul Sarte: Overview). Put simply, Sarte’s concept of existentialism is the thought process by which humans find themselves existing, and the analysis of their existence itself (Tulloch, Sartrian Existentialism). This analysis of existence found itself in many writings during the twentieth century, and acts a driving force in both Bishop’s “In the Waiting Room” and Lispector’s “The Daydreams of a Drunk Woman”.

Existentialism is a philosophy in which people believe that their actions determine their own expansion as a person. The Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia states, “Sartre nevertheless insisted that his existentialism is a form of humanism, and he strongly emphasized human freedom, choice, and responsibility”

In his 1946 essay Existentialism, Jean-Paul Sartre undertakes the task of defending existentialism against what he defines as “charges” (341) brought against it. Sartre begins to outline the “charges” brought against existentialism and further, existentialists. Following the medieval quaestio-form, Sartre begins with the statement of the objection, a short discussion, and then his reply to each.

It was three o’clock in the morning. Outside the window, the sky was still dark. There were barely any stars in the sky, and no cloud cluttered. The sky was painfully dark and motionless. Except for the faint light from the moon, everything seems lifeless. In a dark room, there was a girl sitting up on the bed, leaning on the wall beside her. She was looking out the window. Through the window, the girl can see the sky and the top of some buildings, however, nothing special or attractive. But, the girl has been staring at it for almost an hour now, silently and peacefully.