Night By Elie Wiesel Night Character Analysis

From the time where Elie had to decide to fight for his father’s life, to the time where he questioned his beliefs, Elie has had to make many life-changing decisions. As some of his decisions left negative consequences, some were left a positive outcome. In the end, all the decisions Elie had made in the camps has made his life miserable or at its best. For better or for worse, the events that Elie encountered makes his life unforgettable as realizes there was more to life than he had thought of

This shows Elie’s change in his thoughts on God and having faith. At the beginning of the story, Elie strives to be a spiritual kid and is fascinated by learning about God. He goes behind his father's back to learn about God with Moishe the Beadle, and has intense prayers everyday which he cries during. However, he becomes bitter towards God, angry about all the pain he has inflicted on the Jewish race. This change in perspective was brought on by the torture, abuse, and inhumane treatment by the Nazis. It causes Elie to question how God, who is supposed to be helpful and good, could ever allow such horror. This connects to loss, and how the traumatic

Elie experienced many changes, as a person while he was in Auschwitz. Before Elie was sent to Auschwitz, he was just a small naive child that new very little

On page 62 after he witnesses the young child being hung he states “Where is He? Here He is-He is hanging here on this gallows.” At this point the reader can infer that Elie has mostly given up on his faith and has become more aimless and lost. When his father passes away near the end of the book he doesn’t even say a prayer or anything of the sort as stated on page 106 with “There were no prayers at his grave. No candles were lit in his memory.” Elie had finally given up on his faith and had not turned into a beast or a brute, but into a man with nothing to do and nowhere to

In the story Elie was whipped savagely by the Kapo, and all he can think about is his father. Later in the new camp Elie's father is giving up on life and Elie tries to make him move. There is an allied air raid and for the first time Elie leave his father.(wiesel pg. 106) This proves he finally gave up on his father. He started off in the story really caring about his father sacrificing his own safety just so he could stay close to him. After his father was struck ill in the new camp he gave up on him. In the story Elie wanted to keep his shoes even if that meant he would get tormented even more. This show he has a very strong will and loves things that give him a glimmer of hope. At the end when his father died he stopped caring and lost all hope in surviving the

“I woke from my apathy only when two men approached my father. I threw myself on his body. He was cold. I slapped him. I rubbed his hands, crying... At last, my father half opened his eyes” (99). Elie almost lost the one thing that kept him going, his father. He had gone all this way, enduring so many different trials and awful things. He was not going to let his father give up now like most of the other people around them. Elie would not let him be like the other ones that were thrown off. “In a snowy field in Poland, hundreds of naked orphans without a tomb” (99). Elie was not going to abandon his father like

For example, he begins to think why would God put him through the torture and bad things that he has been through. Before, Elie believed and was very interested in his religion (Judaism). His view on his God and his religion changed because of things Elie saw, the things Elie experienced, and the things Elie thought and did. Beliefs and religion is something that is hard to manipulate and change one's feelings towards. The Holocaust had extreme effects on Elie, and which will also influence his future generations, which not only affects just Elie but the whole world because of people's beliefs towards mankind and

First Elie started to lose his faith. He wanted to believe that his mom and sister were kept safe but he was losing his faith. “We pretended for what if one of us still did believe” (Wiesel 46). He started losing his faith after him and his mom and sister got separated which has a big effect on his identity. He stayed silent in hard times. Elie was abused for no reason but he chose not to say anything about it. “As I bit my lips in order not to howl in pain” (Wiesel 53). Instead of standing up for himself, he lost his will to speak. One of the major points when he lost his identity, was when he lost his name. Elie’s identity was taken from him when they took away his name and called him by a number instead. “I became A-1137. From then one I had no other name” (Wiesel 42). When he lost his name he was no longer the same person he was before the holocaust. Elie felt like he needed to speak for all the Jews the lost their identity that couldn’t speak for

Things end up changing very slightly and quickly for Elie. At the camp, they were standing, waiting to find out whether he and his father were going to the crematoria to be burned alive along with other people and their children. Everybody was saying Kaddish, a Jewish prayer, for themselves and others, and after Elie heard his father whisper it, Elie tells the reader, “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 thank him for?” (pg. 33) Elie was starting to lose faith in the God that he had worshipped and cherished so

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.

In “Night” by Elie Wiesel, the main character, Elie, changed as a person because of his experiences at Auschwitz. Throughout his entire journey, his choices became wiser and more strategic. Before entering Auschwitz, Elie was a very weak in the sense of decision making. He did not think ahead or think about the consequences for his actions. However, Elie’s character changed because of his experiences at Auschwitz.

The emotional, spiritual, and the self-preserving changes show how Elie Wiesel, is made a stronger and changed man. Through his story, we can see how much he loses and gains emotionally and physically. Even after losing everything, he has the will to live and persevere. Sadly his faith diminishes and his emotions as well. Some may see this as a negative or a positive, but all in all these major changes shape Elie Wiesel and change him

Elie is questioning if God if he is real and why he has done nothing about the deaths that are happening around him. Also later on in the story his father dies and many others die around him. During these times he questions God and loses faith because his prays are not being answered and many

As their treatment started to get worse Elie began to change. He still tried to stay with his father but his thoughts about him began to change. He watched his father be beat by a Kommandant and thought about how he was glad it was not him. Throughout the book Elie would have mixed emotions about his father. He would think bad things about him and then get mad at himself for doing so.

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