Did having Elie’s father alive affect him from surviving longer or did he just hold him back? Night is a book written by a man who at the time was just a teenager, he was a Jew and just because of that he was abused in many ways. His name is Elie Wiesel. Elie watched as so many Jews were beaten, killed, or being criticized in the concentration camps. Elie’s father helped Elie get through the contraction camps in so many ways. While reading this book I saw how they would help each other through the tough times. Elie and Elie’s father wouldn’t just think of themselves, they would of think of each other. In the concentration camps the SS men didn't feed them, and when they did it only was a little piece of bread or soup. “My father swallowed my …show more content…
Elie went behind a building because he heard a sound coming from there. When Elie got behind the building he saw that Idek was with a polish girl. The polish girl didn't have a top on. Idek punished Elie for leaving his work, but the real reason why he punished him was because Elie saw him with the polish girl. “I was thinking of my father. He would be suffering more than I” (Wiesel 58). Elie just gotten whipped by Idek so he could keep his mouth shut about what he saw. When Elie was in so much pain that he couldn’t even open his eyes, he wasn't thinking about himself he was wondered about how his father was feeling. Even when he’s in so much pain he care about his father. In my opinion I believe that Elie used all his strength to get better and survive for his father. “I said nothing. Nor did he. Never before had we understood each other so clearly” (Wiesel 68-69). Elie and his father have a bond together that on the day of New Years, when Elie went to see his father before going to sleep they both knew what each other were feeling. When Elie got to his father he got his hand and kissed it. Elie felt a tear on his hand, he didn't know if it was his or his father’s but it didn't matter as long as they were
In night there were many times when Elie and his dad wanted to give up but they did not because they had each other. They used family to get through the terrible things that were happening to not only them but millions like them. Before the concentration
Elie’s father loses his strength quickly, “his eyes [grew] dim” (46) almost immediately after arriving. The horrors which he had seen were easily enough to crush the spirit of a former community leader. His disbelief of the horrors he saw questioned the very basis of his soul, and he began to despair. His father’s eyes soon become, “veiled with despair” (81), as he loses hope for survival. The despair of camp life shrouds the human within, showing only another cowed prisoner. Elie’s father no longer can see hope, having his vision clouded by cruelty and hate. Elie’s father is eventually overwhelmed by despair; he, “would not get up. He knew that it was useless” (113). The Nazis crushed his soul, killed his family, stole his home, and eventually took his life; this treatment destroyed the person inside the body. He could no longer summon the strength to stay alive, so he gave up, and collapsed.
The one person in Elie’s life that means everything to him is his father. During his time in the concentration camps, Elie’s bond with his father
In his book, Night, Elie Wiesel spoke about his experience as a young Jewish boy in the Nazi concentration camps. During this turbulent time period, Elie described the horrifying events that he lived through and how that affected the relationship with his father. Throughout the book, Elie and his father’s relationship faced many obstacles. In the beginning, Elie and his father have much respect for one another and at the end of the book, that relationship became a burden and a feeling of guilt. Their relationship took a great toll on them throughout their journey in the concentration camps.
In a couple parts of the story Elie’s dad in many ways was jeopardizing Elie’s well being. For instance, when his father was sick. “Instead of him taking the extra bread he had gotten he gave it to his dad” There was no point because his father was gonna die either way so he basically wasted it. Another example of why family isn’t always the best thing to have during a crisis. Is when the “rabbi's son left him when they were forced to run away from the Americans/ Russians”. He did this because he thought his father was dragging him down so he slipped away and left him to ultimately die alone. Which still doesn’t justify what he did, but i’m sure he did it to save his own life because his father was slowing him down. Another example would be when they were on the train the second time and a SS officer threw a piece of bread into the cart just to watch the men fight over it. While they were fighting Elie describes a point where “a man actually beats his own father for a piece of bread”(Wiesel Pg.105). These are just two of many instances throughout the
The Holocaust changed the lives of many. Those that survived have many terrifying stories to tell. Many survivors are too horrified to tell their story because their experiences are too shocking to express in words. Eli Wiesel overcomes this fear by publicly relaying his survival of the Holocaust. "Night", his powerful and moving story, touches the hearts of many and teaches his readers a great lesson. He teaches that in a short span of time, the ways of the world can change for the worst. He wants to make sure that if the world didn't learn anything from hearing about the atrocities of the Holocaust, maybe they'll be able to learn something from Elie's own personal experience. Usually, a person can internalize a situation better
During the years prior to Elie's Wiesel's experience in the Holocaust, Elie and his father shared a distant relationship that lacked a tremendous amount of support and communications but, eventually, their bond strengthens as they rely on each other for survival and comfort.
In a Concentration Camp survival was next to impossible. In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie is a survivor of the holocaust who doesn’t have much of a relationship with his father. He has always felt that he was never important to his father and that his father cared more about the community than his own family. When Eliezer and his father are forced to count on each other, it’s a slow process for them to finally have a father-son relationship. Without each other they wouldn’t have survived for as long as they did and Eliezer would have lost all hope. A major theme in this story is how Eliezer and his father come together and build a relationship amidst their circumstances.
After marching outside in the freezing weather for days, Elie’s father starts to sleep in the convoy. During his sleep, two “gravediggers” enter the convoy and assume that Elie’s father, Shlomo Wiesel, is dead and they try to throw him out to make room. Elie refuses to believe that his father is dead and desperately tries to wake him up, throwing himself at his body (99). Elie goes into great detail how he tried to wake his father up, saying “I slapped him. I rubbed his hands, crying” and “I started to hit him harder and harder. At last, my father half opened his eyes” (99). Without Elie being there to wake his father up, Shlomo would have been thrown outside in the cold, left to die. Later on, when Elie’s father is deathly ill with dysentery, Elie takes the role of a caregiver and helps his father live a little longer. He would take his father back to his cot and help him lie down (109). Elie also starts to give his father extra rations of bread and water even though deep down, Elie knows it won’t help cure his father from his illness. Every time Elie’s dad pleaded for water, Elie knew “that he must not drink. But he pleaded with me so long that I gave in” (110). Mr. Wiesel relied on Elie more than ever at this time in his life to help him stay alive for one more day even though his future was bleak. Although Shlomo was getting weaker by the day, he needed Elie, his only son, to stay with him and help
One internal conflict Elie experienced was the loss of all of his family. While he was in the concentration camps, he and his father were the only ones in his family that were left. “My hand tightened its grip on my father. All I could think of was not to lose him. Not to remain alone,” which was stated on page 30, explains how he and his father were all that were left and his father would have to be there for Elie during that time. They fought hard together through the cold nights
Throughout the novel, we can understand that in the beginning, the relationship between Elie and his father was not the best because Elie believed his father cared more about the Jewish community than him. However, by the time the father and the son only had each other, they were depending on each other. Elie was only living for his father because he knew his father would not survive without him. They were both helping each other in a ways surviving. For example, Elie gave his father lessons in marching step, to help him survive (55). Also, Elie became less and less emphatic toward his dad during the concentration camp days. The Nazi sabotages the wonderful bond a father and a son had together. Elie could see his own father get beaten up and even than; he had no emotion or anger (39). Once his father got beat up with an iron bar, and Elie did nothing to help him, he just stood there (54). Even thought he had no emotion, even when his father past away, Elie said “I did not weep, and it pained me that I could not weep. But I was out of tears. And deep inside me, if I could have searched the recesses of my feeble conscience, I might have found something like: Free at last!...
As humans, we require basic necessities, such as food, water, and shelter to survive. But we also need a reason to live. The reason could be the thought of a person, achieving some goal, or a connection with a higher being. Humans need something that drives them to stay alive. This becomes more evident when people are placed in horrific situations. In Elie Wiesel's memoir Night, he reminisces about his experiences in a Nazi concentration camp during the Holocaust. There the men witness horrific scenes of violence and death. As time goes on they begin to lose hope in the very things that keep them alive: their faith in God, each other, and above all, themselves.
In the beginning of the book, before experiencing life threatening difficulties, Elie was much more determined to stay with his family (in order to survive). Eliezer thought that his father was what kept him going and gave him strength, he was certain that the right thing to do was to stay with his dad. In chapter 3 Wiesel states, “My hand tightened its grip on my father. All I could think of was not to lose him. Not to remain alone” (30). In these sentences, Elie explains that he and his father needed to stay together. This quote also shows what Elie’s emotions were; he was scared to suffer through the concentration camp alone. Elie also shows his need for family when he says, “Franek, the foreman, assigned me to a corner... ‘Please, sir ... I’d like to be near
In Night, by Elie Wiesel, there is an underlying theme of anger. Anger not directed where it seems most appropriate- at the Nazis- but rather a deeper, inbred anger directed towards God. Having once been a role model of everything a “good Jew” should be, Wiesel slowly transforms into a faithless human being. He cannot comprehend why the God who is supposed to love and care for His people would refuse to protect them from the Germans. This anger grows as Wiesel does and is a constant theme throughout the book.
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