Inhuman Behavior In Night By Elie Wiesel

In Elie Wiesel’s novel Night, Wiesel writes about the experiences of Eliezer, his family, and fellow Jews, he explained how the Nazis gradually changes the way the Jews lived little by little. Dehumanization is the process of stripping a person of every quality that makes him human and changing them to fit their needs. Dehumanizing started when Eliezer and other Jews in his community are evacuated from their homes in Sighet. They were transported in cattle cars which related the Jews to no more than livestock. After the harsh transportation the Jews arrived at Auschwitz a concentration camp where Eliezer spent many months of his life. They were whipped, ran, and starved till some of the Jews could not take it. In Elie Wiesel book he explains how he found the stamina to survive these cruel conditions.

Eliezer Wiesel, a Jewish boy during the Holocaust, survived more in that time period than most should in a life time. He had overcome fatigue and starvation, and survived the regime of two concentration camps. Not only that, but he did it with his father, his support throughout the book. Eliezer had his will to survive that kept him alive, his father that was his crutch, and his hope that everyone else was grasping onto and losing. Night shows the true strength of Eliezer Wiesel and his indomitable strength of the the human spirit, showing the characteristics of survival, family bond, and hope, all throughout the book.

“Humanity? Humanity is not concerned with us. Today anything is allowed. Anything is possible, even these crematories” (Wiesel 30).

The human condition is a very malleable idea that is constantly changing due to the current state of mankind. In the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel, the concept of the human condition is displayed in the worst sense of the concept, during the Holocaust of WWII. During this time, multiple groups of people, most notably European Jews, were persecuted against and sent to horrible hard labor and killing centers such as Auschwitz. In this memoir, Wiesel uses complex figurative language such as similes and metaphors to display the theme that a person’s state as a human, both at a physical and emotional level, can be altered to extreme lengths, and even taken away from them under the most extreme conditions.

The more of the world a person sees, the more he/she realizes that it is not as perfect as he/she thinks it is. When one matures, he/she gains knowledge and experiences that affect how he/she act and think. Their perspective of the world changes either positively or negatively. Night, an autobiographical memoir written by Elie Wiesel, tells of the horrors he faced as a child during the Holocaust. The more the readers read about his experiences, the more they see how his perspectives change throughout the novel. Emily Dickinson's poem “We Grow Accustomed to the Dark” explains how one must conquer his/her fear in order to see more of the world. The way we perceive things change as we gain more knowledge and experience of the world we live in.

“He was so terrible that he was no longer terrible, only dehumanized.” Elie and his family just wanted to live a normal life. They didn’t have very much money, but were happy with the state they were in. One day, SS officers showed up and took Elie and his family away. Not knowing where they were going, they were obviously scared. Once they finally got there, they realized what they were in for, and that Moishe the Beadle was right. In Elie Wiesel’s book, Night, the German Army dehumanizes Elie Wiesel and the rest of the Jewish prisoners by depriving them of love, safety, and physiological needs.

Throughout the duration of the Holocaust, many Jews witnessed the worst of humanity. In concentration camps, over six million people were killed and tortured. Among the people imprisoned in these camps was Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor. In his memoir Night, the many acts of dehumanization and cruelty that Wiesel witnesses ultimately leads to his loss of faith in both his god and humanity.

"Night" by Elie Wiesel is "A slim volume of terrifying power" (The New York Time), the novel is concerning the tragic events that occurred during the Holocaust. The first section of the memoir raises an internal conflict, regarding the Jews of Sighet being ignorant about the terrifying events that are occurring outside their small town. This conflict is created when Moishe the Beadle escaped from the Gestapo and returned to Sighet to warn the Jews of the crisis, which is happening right under their noses. This is shown in the following quote, "he went from one Jewish house to the next, telling his story" (7), despite warning his community of the dangers that are progressing towards them, the Jews of Sighet ignored him and did not believe Moishe. The ignorance of the Jews is shown when

In the memoir Night, the narrator Elie Wiesel recounts a moment when he loses faith in God. ¨But there were those who said we should fast, precisely because it was dangerous to do so. We needed to show God that even here, locked in hell, we were capable of singing His praises¨ (Wiesel 69). Wiesel is losing faith in God and not believing in him. Wiesel believes that he could still pray for God, even though he thinks God does not answer his prayers. Two significant themes related to inhumanity discussed in the book Night by Elie Wiesel are losing faith in God and disbelief.

One of Adolf Hitler’s promises was to eliminate the Jewish race. In order for this to happen, you must first see people as less than human. Once you have accomplished this task, the mass murder of millions of people becomes easy. In his memoir Night, Elie Wiesel recalls the multitude of times he was seen as less than human, and how this affected his life while in concentration camps. The dehumanization of the prisoners not only crushes them, it causes them to become desensitized and often see each other as less than human.

In Elie Wiesel’s autobiography, “Night” there are many examples of dehumanization from start to finish. Dehumanization is stripping a person of every quality that makes them human. This includes their identity, individuality, and soul. The Night shows the process by which the Nazis reduced the Jews to little more than “things” which were a nuisance to them. The book takes place in World War 2, in the Holocaust. Eliezer and his family are very much directly affected by actions taken by the Nazis as well as all the other Jews. Throughout the whole book, the Nazis use practices such as beatings, starvation, theft of possessions, separation of families, crude murders, forced labor, and many more actions represented through the text of this book that are all examples of dehumanization. Eliezer, the narrator of the story, arrived at the concentration camp of Auschwitz when he was fifteen years old. He arrived by the transportation of cattle cars. Within the various camps, Eliezer spent ten months of abuse and dehumanization. He lost so much due to the Germans.

Cruelty surrounds the world constantly, and is used frequently in works of literature to reveal certain things about the theme. In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, acts of cruelty are used to express the theme and enhance its message. One of the largest themes revealed by these acts is “man’s inhumanity to man,” which includes mistreatment of Jews by the Nazis, the common people, and other Jews. Watching the large amounts of violence, abuse, and discrimination that occur in this memoir show us the horrors of the Holocaust and how it transformed the men and women who it experienced it, as well as those who caused it.

The quote “Man’s inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn” is very relevant in the Holocaust texts Night by Elie Wiesel and The Last Days directed by James Moll because it really sums up the Holocaust. Both these texts give insight to what happened inside the camps and how the survivors were changed forever. These texts both show that in times of extreme inhumanity, one can lose his faith, which leads to a loss of innocence.

Humanity is the unique differences that make up the identity of each individual person. In Eliezer Wiesel’s book, Night, he tells of the time he and his family are stripped of these differences, and how he loses his humanity because of it. Night is about a young boy who is transported to many different concentration camps. Elie’s entire family is issued to these camps, and they are separated; the father is with Elie and the mother is with his three sisters. When Elie escapes the camps, he is alone because his entire family is presumed to be dead.

A tragic event can change someone’s life forever in a good way or a bad way. The holocaust shaped people's lives into a way where they can never go back. In “Night” by Elie Wiesel, the main character, Elie, changed as a person due to his experiences at Auschwitz. Elie was a victim of the holocaust and it changed his life forever as a person and a Jew.