Literary Devices In Night By Elie Wiesel

The change in Elie’s views on religion are best displayed by his monologue after a man beside him is praising God:

Elie and his family never thought the rumors would ever reach them. Until one day it did. Sending them to ghettos, making them leave their lives behind. “I looked at my house in which I had spent years seeking my God, fasting to hasten the coming of the Messiah, imagining what my life would be like later. Yet I felt little sadness. My mind was empty.” (page 19) Elie didn’t know what to think. No one had a clue as to where they were going to be located now. The place where he used to worship his god was beginning to be taken away from him. He doesn’t realize that his god would make him feel so betrayed and little

In the passage above there were a couple of examples that Elie, and the other Jews were being dehumanized and just treated so poorly that it left a horrible image in Elie's head replaying over and

In the beginning of the book, Elie’s faith in God is so strong that he never questions His existence. He went to the synagogue every day after school unlike other boys this age. He wanted to get closer to God by studying the Jewish texts more. He thought that the closer to God that if he was close to God than God will save him from anything. “One day I asked my father to find me a master who could guide me in my studies of Kabbalah” (Wiesel 4). Elie’s

In the beginning of the book, Elie believed that he no longer had faith, though he had been a compelling believer before. He also reveals the strong relationship he had with his father, and because his father was the only sense of family he had left, he did everything he could to keep his father healthy and alive. In section three of the novel, Elie shows the first sign of loss of faith, “For the first time, I felt anger rising within me… why should I sanctify his name… what was there to thank him for” (Wiesel 33). He believed that the terrible situation he was in, was to surely be blamed on God, due to the unanswered prayers that Elie received. Elie displays the great relationship he possessed with his father in section three as well, “Men to the left… women to the right… eight words spoken quietly, indifferently, without emotion... eight simple, short words… yet that was the moment when I left my mother… we were alone” (Wiesel 29). The quote demonstrates the fact that Elie’s family was literally split in half when his sister and mother went to the right and he and his father stayed left. Elie only has his father, so it makes sense for Elie to sacrifice everything for him.

Elie’s faith in his Lord and his instinctive love for humanity are put to their final tests as the novel approaches its climax and conclusion. After witnessing the malicious, brutal hanging of an innocent child, Elie comes to the

In the autobiography, Night, Elie experiences and witnesses a man killing his father, wishing that his father dies, and being told that it is every man for himself which supports the Collapse of Compassion. Collapse of Compassion is a theory that states that a person turns off their compassion when more that one person is suffering. Firstly, Elie supports the theory when he witnesses a man killing his father for a piece of bread. The novel, states, “Meir, my little Meir! Don't you recognize me ...

Elie's thoughts here show that at that time he did not understand why he would be sanctity or

Three days later, optimism still present, the Jews still refused to believe that God would let dreadful things occur to them even when “German army vehicles made their appearance on their streets” (9). The towns “impressions of the Germans were rather reassuring” (9) at that time, on the contrary of the bloodcurdling conceptions they later gained when the reality of the terrors of Germans had cropped up. Months later, Elie and the other Jews’ faiths become warped when they come back down to earth and the Germans true intentions strike as they enter their long expedition in the death camps.

All hope was lost in escape. The jews had already died inside, they cared no longer for freedom, just death. This shows just how extremely the cruelty affected them. It was explained earlier that they were being drained of emotion, and that they were. They felt nothing anymore as a result of this; the jews had fell into

His eyes tell that he is dead inside and has given up all hope since he wasn’t strong enough to work anymore. So he just laid there waiting for the selection to clean him out of the clinic. Even tho Elie couldn’t see his eyes he used them to explain what kind of situation he was in.

Nineteen forty-two, Elie has seen what people are capable of. He was astonished how his fellow Jewish peer's optimism. He was taken from his home only allowed few personal items. In the ghetto, he felt the feeling of hope. He felt the feeling of not being hungry. He felt the feeling of wanting to pray.

My father had just been struck before my eyes, and I had not flickered an eyelid” (26). Elie does not understand why he just witnesses his own father get beat. He believes that the only thing holding

Throughout Elie’s journey he experiences extremely traumatic events that take a toll on his faith. People were being burned to death, dying of starvation and suffering from illness everywhere he went. When the captives reach their first concentration

This book interested me because it is a great example of what so many people went through in concentration camps throughout Europe in World War II. So many books have been written about personal accounts of war hardships suffered by the Jews but so few capture the true problems faced by prisoners. The impossible decision between survival and family was a difficult one faced by many during this time. Elie had an unfaltering will to live when his father was alive with him but once his father died the reason for living disappeared. But he once was faced with the decision of helping to keep his father alive or let him die and have an extra ration of food. How can one be stuck with a decision like this and not choose survival? Only true unselfishness can cause you to help someone