Irony In Eliezer Wiesel's Night

Originally, Eliezer was a young teenager who was devoted to his religion and was pious. According to the text, Elie explains, “Why did I pray? Strange question. Why did I live? Why did I breathe?” (4). Religion was Elie’s way of life and brought him a sense of completeness. Praying and understanding his religion was like breathing, he couldn’t live without it. He dedicated himself to his faith and wanted to follow the same acts as his father who was a known man in their town of Sighet and put other people and his religion before himself. At a young age, Elie wanted to study Kabbalah, which is the deepest insights into God and the purpose of creation. He found his master in a man named Moishe the Beadle. Moishe the Beadle was a master in everything he has done and was an influential person in Elie’s life. For instance, “Man comes closer to God through the questions he asks Him...Man asks and God replies...The real answers, Eliezer, you will find only within yourself,”(5). Moshe proved that God is always there to guide you no matter what happens, but sometimes you also have to rely on yourself. Elie was astounded with the way Moishe viewed God and the lessons he was taught. It became a routine for Elie to converse with him. But after Moishe was transported from Sighet for being a foreign Jew, Elie started to have a change of thought. Weisel points out, “One day… I saw Moishe the Beadle… told me what had happened to him and his companions… were forced to dig huge trenches… they [the Gestapo] shot their prisoners… Infants were tossed… and used as targets for the machine guns,” (6). Moishe’s experiences sounded so horrifying that nobody believed him- he was called a fool and liar. Although

the horrific events in the concentration camp and the ever-present risk of death does Eliezer

Eliezer was taught that God is supposed to be filled with good, yet as he goes through the Holocaust, he thinks that maybe God doesn't exist at all . As he and his father are walking through Auschwitz, he sees the Nazi's burning babies in a large pit. While his father began whispering to himself the prayer for the dead, reciting "may his name be blessed and magnified...," Eliezer asks himself, thinking that he would be burned as well, "Why should I bless his name? The Eternal, Lord of the Universe...was silent. What had I to thank him for?"(Page 31) This is the beginning of his lack of faith in god. As Eliezer and his father were together in Buna, an occasional public hanging would take place. Hangings were executed not only for those that committed a crime, but also for the prisoners of the camp, in order to learn a lesson from the accused. In Buna, one of three prisoners who were hung was a little boy, who was a servant of a member of the resistance group in the camp. Once the boy was publicly hung, the boy was still alive, just hanging there on the noose for about half an hour. As the prisoners in the camp were forced to watch the hanging, they began to cry. Eliezer said that even though there were so many hangings, this was the first time everyone was crying. At that moment, a prisoner asked out loud "Where is God now?"(Page 62) and Eliezer answered to himself "Where is he?

Throughout the book, his attutude about religion changes as night progresses. In the beginning of the book, Moche tells Eliezer that one must seek to ask God the right questions, not to find out the right answers. One simply cannot understand the answer God gives: “You will find the true answers Eliezer, only within yourself.”

Firstly, Eliezer’s actions in the beginning of the memoir is the polar opposite of some of the ideas and actions he did later in the story. On one of the first pages of this memoir, a character named Moishe the Beadle is pressuring Eile on why he prays. Eliezer's time in his Transylvanian town proves how faithful he was to his God,”’Why do you pray?’ he asked after a moment. Why did I pray? Strange question. Why did I live? Why did I breathe?”(Wiesel 4). This quote proves the loyalty and faith he had within him, it would be the same if someone asked him “Why do I breathe?” it would be a strange question to ask someone. Furthermore, this proves the thought that religion was central to his life, like breathing. Another piece of evidence comes from the time Eile asked his father if he was able to learn the ways of Kabbalah. Using this quote, I can prove my point,”One day I asked my father to find me a master who could guide me in my studies of Kabbalah”(Wiesel 4). This sentence helps prove the point that Eliezer always wanted to know more about his religion, even if it meant he had to understand the a completely different way on how to understand the bible. This idea was relatively new in the world, and this is why many jews didn’t want to even have a chance of betraying God. Although he was extremely passion about his religion in the beginning of this book, most of these thoughts dissipate by the middle of the book when he reaches Auschwitz.

People often begin to lose faith in God because of the results they faced from their life experiences. Some face things that seem cruel and unbearable while others are “confronted with the information presented from another viewpoint that rejects God” (Gospel Billboards). Elie was told by his father to never lose his faith in God, it would help him get through tough times and keep him strong. The faith is the only strong force that helped Elie Wiesel get through the Holocaust. Through experiences that involve cruel and unbearable moments, people start questioning whether God has the answers to life’s problems. This results in faith beginning to weaken, people stop communicating with God, which makes it easier for one’s faith to diminish. We encounter Elie questioning and refusing God, but also see his contradictory behavior he exhibits to praise. However, throughout the book, Eliezer witnesses and experiences things that leads him to lose his faith in his religion. The longer he stays in the concentration camps, the more he experiences and sees cruelty and suffering. Eliezer believes that people who pray to a God who allows their families to suffer and die are more stronger and forgiving to God. Elie was angry at God, he thought God didn’t deserve his praises or honors because he expected God to come save him but he never did. He observes people die and others around him slowly lose hope, starve, Elie ceases to believe that God could exist at all now. “Where He is? This

The terrors of the Holocaust are unimaginably destructive as described in the book Night by Elie Wiesel. The story of his experience about the Holocaust is one nightmare of a story to hear, about a trek from one’s hometown to an unknown camp of suffering is a journey of pain that none shall forget. Hope and optimism vanished while denial and disbelief changed focus during Wiesel’s journey through Europe. A passionate relationship gradually formed between the father and the son as the story continued. The book Night genuinely demonstrates how the Holocaust can alter one's spirits and relations.

Irony, a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result. Throughout Night there is use of situational and verbal irony. This use of irony keeps the reader interested. The use of irony causes the reader to know things that the characters often are not aware of.

At first glance, Night, by Eliezer Wiesel does not seem to be an example of deep or emotionally complex literature. It is a tiny book, one hundred pages at the most with a lot of dialogue and short choppy sentences. But in this memoir, Wiesel strings along the events that took him through the Holocaust until they form one of the most riveting, shocking, and grimly realistic tales ever told of history’s most famous horror story. In Night, Wiesel reveals the intense impact that concentration camps had on his life, not through grisly details but in correlation with his lost faith in God and the human conscience.

Night, by Elie Wiesel, showed the devastation of Eliezer’s childhood and illustrated the loss of innocence through the evil of others. Elie Wiesel expressed to us that one’s own faith and beliefs can be challenged through torture and ongoing suffering. The novel, Night, allowed the reader to witness the change in Eliezer from one of an innocent child who strongly adhered to his faith in God into a person who questioned not only his faith and God but of himself as well. The cruelty is shown to him while in the concentration camp forced him to wonder if there was a God and if so why would he put him and the others through such torture. Through his suffering, Eliezer’s beliefs dramatically and negatively changed his faith in God and compelled him to experience a transformative relationship with his father.

Before this however, he has complete control over what he does in life, and it is his choice “of studying Kabbalah” (Wiesel 4). He studies the Talmud and adheres to his parents belief in Orthodox Judaism. During his days Eliezer often goes to prayers and speaks to Moishe about the ways of God. He seems to be fascinated

The Holocaust was a horrific time period when over six million Jewish people were systematically exterminated by the Nazi government. Throughout this period, the Jews were treated particularly inhumane because the Nazi viewed their ethnicities as a disease to humanity. Dehumanization is a featured theme in Elie Wiesel’s novel about the Holocaust since he demonstrated numerous examples of the severe conditions endured by the Jewish people. The nonfiction story Night by Elie Wiesel focuses on inhumanity and reveals human beings are capable of committing great atrocities and behaving cruelly, when such actions are condoned by society, peer pressure, and ethical beliefs. Elie Wiesel uses literary devices to produce a consistent theme of inhumanity.

In the memoir, Night, author Elie Wiesel portrays the dehumanization of individuals and its lasting result in a loss of faith in God. Throughout the Holocaust, Jews were doggedly treated with disrespect and inhumanity. As more cruelty was bestowed upon them, the lower their flame of hope and faith became as they began turning on each other and focused on self preservation over family and friends. The flame within them never completely died, but rather stayed kindling throughout the journey until finally it stood flickering and idle at the eventual halt of this seemingly never-ending nightmare. Elie depicts the perpetuation of violence that crops up with the Jews by teaching of the loss in belief of a higher power from devout to doubt they

He says, “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 be thankful for?” (page 33) This shows the questioning and frustration for God that Eliezer has developed in his short time in the concentration camps. When he learns of the Rabbi’s son’s deeds, Eliezer asks, “Oh God, Master of the Universe, give me the strength

Before leaving his home, Eliezer was a very religiously devoted boy, even going against his father’s wishes and studying Jewish oral law with a pauper, Moshe. “One evening, I told him how unhappy I was not to be able to find in Sighet a master to teach me the Zohar…And Moishe the Beadle, the poorest of the poor in Sighet, spoke to me for hours on end about the Kabbalah’s revelations and its mysteries, thus began my initiation” (Night 4). Eliezer’s father had told him he was simply not old enough the study the Zohar, but he knew deep down that he was ready and found his own master to help him with his studies, showing his faithfulness in his religion. He was also emotionally attached to his faith, as he was questioned whenever he would cry during his prayers. Later in the book, after being in the camp for a while, a questioning of his religious faith comes into play, “Never shall I forgot those