Night Elie Wiesel Quotes Analysis

In life, people go through different changes when put through difficult experiences. In the book Night, Elie Wiesel is a young Jewish boy whose family is sent to a concentration camp by Nazis. The story focuses on his experiences and trials through the camp. Elie physically becomes more dehumanized and skeletal, mentally changes his perspective on religion, and socially becomes more selfish and detached, causing him to lose many parts of his character and adding to the overall theme of loss in Night.

Night is a dramatic book that tells the horror and evil of the concentration camps that many were imprisoned in during World War II. Throughout the book the author Elie Wiesel, as well as many prisoners, lost their faith in God. There are many examples in the beginning of Night where people are trying to keep and strengthen their faith but there are many more examples of people rebelling against God and forgetting their religion.

Elie loses complete faith in god in many points where god let him down. He struggles physically and mentally for life and no longer believes there is a god. Elie worked hard to save himself and asks god many times to help him and take him out of the misery he was facing. "Why should I sanctify his name? The Almighty, the eternal, and terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent..."(page 33). Elie was confused, because he doesn’t know why the Germans would kill his race amongst many others, and he does not know why god could let such thing happen to innocent people. "I did not deny god's existence, but I doubted his absolute justice..."(page 42). These conditions gave him confidence, and a courage to

In Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie wrote about his journey through the Holocaust and how it impacted his faith. Before the Holocaust, Elie became very passionate about Judaism, but his learning was stopped abruptly because the Nazis had arrived. The Nazis took away his teacher, along with his neighbors. Soon, the Nazis came back for the remaining citizens and loaded them into a train. This was the beginning of the Holocaust, in which Elie would experience many horrific events. Throughout Night, Elie’s faith decreases because of the harsh conditions of concentration camps and the declining health of his father.

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

Elie’s faith before being exposed to the concentration camps is apparent and he works hard to strengthen and grow his faith. All throughout Night, Wiesel shows the eminent effect faith has on individual’s actions and attitude. At the beginning of Night, Elie’s faith is a key feature of his lifestyle and attitude. Studying under the wisdom of Moishe the Beadle, Elie can put his faith in retrospect as he says, “In the course of those evenings I became convinced that Moishe the Beadle would help me enter eternity, into that time when question and answer would become one” (Wiesel 5). It is very clear that Elie is very emotionally and physically invested in his faith. Before camp Elie was so eager to expand and connect to his faith in which he becomes, “convinced” that he fully understands his faith proving him to be a devout Jewish boy. Thus because, Moishe the Beadle is helping him “enter eternity” and build his faith. Elie’s whole life revolves

As days went by in the concentration camp, many begin to lose their faith in religion just like Elie. The book, Night is written by Elie Wiesel, a winner of the Nobel Peace prize. In the book Night, Elie is the main character who is very religious at first. It begins with his family and him traveling to Auschwitz which his little sister and mother die. With only his father and him, they went through many hardships and moving from camp to camp. Unfortunately, Elie father did not survive the Holocaust but Elie did. By the end of the story, Elie did entirely lose his faith in God because he did not celebrate the important holidays, questioned God and his justice, and tries to forget his existence.

There are many important themes and overtones to the book Night, by Eliezer Wiesel. One of the major themes from the book includes the protagonist, and author of his memoire, Elie Wiesel’s ever changing relationship with God. An example of this is when Moche the Beadle asked Elie an important question that would change his life forever, as the basis of his passion and aptitude for studying the ancient texts and teachings of Judaism, “When Moche the Beadle asked Elie why he prayed, Elie couldn 't think of an answer that truly described his faith, and thought, "a strange question, why did I live, why did I breathe?" (Wiesel 14).

We encounter Elie’s lost of faith throughout the book. Once he was separate he was brought to an area where bodies were being thrown into a fire. He started losing his faith in humanity once he saw the cruel things that were happening. When people lose there faith, they lose their faith in God and themselves. They start looking on the negative side of life and just lose their focus for what they wanted. Elie would want to study the Cabala but his father didn’t approve of it. He would always look out for not just his family but the people around him. Elie would always pray but wouldn't know why. He fascinated with Judaism so he goes without his father’s permission to learn more. “Never shall I forget those flames, which consumed my faith forever.” on page 45 clearly tells us that his faith was lost due to the fact that bodies were being thrown into the flames. As the book

Elie’s faith is very tight at the beginning of the memoir, he had faith in God when he and the other Jews of Sighet were taken to the ghettos. “And we, the Jews of Sighet, were waiting for better days, which would not be long in coming now'' (5). This show that Elie’s faith was strong enough to believe that life would get better and the hardship would soon be over. It was not easy for Elie to have doubt in God when the Nazis were brutally oppressing the Jews in the ghettos. Once Elie and all the others were transported to Auschwitz, Elie was separated from his father and was tortured and forced to work. In the camp Elie was in, some of the youth with him were planning to take down the Nazis and said "We must do something. We can't let them kill us like that, like cattle in the slaughterhouse. We must revolt."(31). Then an

At this point in the story, Elie rarely showed the slightest glimpse or belief in a higher power. He started to decline in hope and questioned every move of his father and all of the prisoners he gazed upon. An example of this rare occasion is when they are running in chapter six and seven. Elie witnessed a split of father and son without realizing that the son intentionally left his father in the dust. He later met a Rabbi who lost his son while they were running. Rabbi Eliahou fathered the son that Elie watched disappear into the group. Rabbi Eliahou did not realize that his son gave up on him and continued on without him. Elie vowed that he would never leave his father in the way that Rabbi Eliahou's son left him. “Oh god, Master of the Universe, give me the strength never to do what Rabbi Eliahou's son has done” ( Wiesel,87 ). Elie did not realize that with that statement he planted a seed of religion in his garden. It may seem acute but this monumental part caused the reaction of the

(CD) An example of Elie doubting his faith is shown by him saying, “I, the former mystic was thinking . . . Yes man is stronger, greater than god”(page 68). (CM) Elie was put through things no one should endure, and his savior, did not protect him. (CM)He was alone, forced to protect himself and his father, survival seemed to be what mattered, not God. (CS) With no for change or an end to his suffering, his faith slipped

Initially, Eliezer’s faith is a result of his Jewish studies, which teach him that God is everywhere in the world, that nothing exists without God, that in fact everything in the physical world is a reflection, of the divine world. At the beginning of the memoir, his faith in God is absolute. When Moshe asks him why he prays to God, he answers, “Why did I pray? . . . Why did I live? Why did I breathe?” (Weisel 4). His belief in comforting and caring God is unconditional, and he cannot imagine living without faith in a divine power; however, throughout the Holocaust Elie’s faith is shaken to its core and he begins to question God himself. Since his studies showed God is good and God is everywhere in the world Elie believes the world is generally good. When

Though faithful as they enter the horrific camps of Auschwitz, Bergen Belsen, Buna, Birknau, Dachau, and Buchenwald, the Jews become capricious. They start losing grip and begin falling down the slippery slope of death the Germans set up for them as more horrors of the camps become unveiled. Soon after arriving in the camp and being told about the crematoria, he felt “anger rising with me [Elie]. Why should I sanctify His name? The Almighty, the eternal terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent” (33). This is the first time that his faith is challenged. After a few days in Auschwitz he “had ceased to pray. I [Elie] was not denying His existence, but doubted His absolute justice” (45). As seen, Elie is beginning to have doubts about God and therefore his belief and faith in him. Finally, when Elie is looking for God to come though he doesn’t and he asks,

In the last section of text that I read, Elie had surgery on his foot and the camp was being evacuated due to the rumour of Russians approaching the camp. The section ended right as the bell rung and the prisoners began to march. I predict that this march will severely weaken Elie and his father, who are already hungry and frail from being in the camp. However, Elie’s faith in himself, not in God, with help him pull through. In the section, Elie stated, “I was no longer able to lament. On the contrary, I felt very strong. I was the accuser, God the accused. My eyes had opened and I was terribly alone in a world without God, without man.” (68) Elie no longer has faith in God to carry him and his father through like he did at the beginning of