People Change in Night by Elie Wiesel Essay

Nearing the end of their arduous journey, the mutual dependence was slowly dwindling as Elie began to have to take care of his father. One example of this is when his father was sick and in the camp infirmary and had not been fed so Elie “gave him what was left of [his] soup. But [his] heart was heavy. [He] was aware that [he] was doing it grudgingly,’ (107). Being that he did this grudgingly, the reader is shown that, to Elie, taking care of his father had become more of an unwanted task rather than a kind action coming from his heart. Elie begins to see his own father as a thorn in his side much rather than his source support. His father is no longer there as a person who will provide motivation to survive but now instead a burden. In another instance, still in the infirmary, when his father pleaded for water and the officer came to silence him, Elie states, “ I didn’t move.

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 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

For example he was questioning his belief, will to live, and if his father was worth sticking with. The text states “Don’t forget that you are in a concentration camp. In this place, it is every man for himself and you cannot think of others. Not even your father” (Wiesel 110). This quote shows that it doesn't matter if it is your father, so Elie should only care for himself. This impacts Elie because he loves his father, you should love your father. For many people to tell him to abandon his father and just not stick with him it can really break down someone emotionally especially if they have been there since the day you were born,and Elie loves his father. They have been through a lot ever since they have been in the concentration

A matter of hours” (Wiesel 89). This quote proves that Elie has changed in the sense that all the darkness

A single action can be the cause of anyone’s transformation. For Elie Wiesel, it the many actions the Nazi Party and Adolf Hitler that gave way for his inevitable change and transformation in his faith in God. In Elie Wiesel's memoir, Night, Elie is sent to Auschwitz, where the cruel work of the SS and the Nazis stripped him of his faith in God, as he started to believed that because God had not done anything to stop the trauma he had suffered, God was a coward. For instance, an example of his transformation can be seen by seeing his strong faith in God early in the book.

: As Elie’s motivation to keep persevering at times began to diminish. Elie would either remind himself that god was watching over him and would eventually free him from the suffering and torture. Other times he would look over at his father and see him struggling yet still fighting with every

“Night’ shows that even in the most brutalising conditions, people still behave humanely. To what extent do you agree?”

* “Elie even gave his dying father extra rations, despite being told to “stop giving your ration of bread and soup too your old father... in fact you should be getting his rations.”

The Holocaust defeated many Jews, not only literally, but spiritually. The novel Night by Elie Wiesel takes its readers on a journey through the eyes of Elie as a young Jew, with hopes, dreams and aspirations, and tells us how in the span of thirteen short months his faith was stolen from him. Elie went from a fifteen year old boy who dreamed of spending his life studying the Kabbalah, to a sixteen year old grown man unable to perform the cultural rites to mourn his fathers death. Where does one go from there? Elie’s path from Sighet, to Auschwitz, and then finally to liberation changes his Judaic ideologies drastically.

One night, the leaders of Buna had left a cauldron of soup out, no one had dared to go near it but one man. The man was so hungry and was on the brink of madness and he no longer cared if he was going to die, he just wanted food and this is what led him to being killed. “Then, for no apparent reason, he let out a terrible scream, a death rattle such as I had never heard before and, with open mouth, thrust his head toward the still steaming liquid.”. During the first selection, Elie was terrified of being selected and getting killed. This led to him thinking about all the reason why he should be killed and how he was most likely going to be selected. “ My head was spinning: you are too skinny…yo u are too weak…yo u are too skinny, you are good for the ovens …”. When Elie’s father died, he didn’t cry or show any sadness whatsoever. Elie was so numb with the pain he had gone through that he was no longer capable of feeling. “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

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.

God yet that star was nowhere to be found. He noticed that when his uncle had been cursed by

On page 91, he sees that the Rabbi’s son starts to abandon his father to empty himself of that burden. Elie prays that he doesn’t become selfish enough to turn against his father. “Oh God, Master of the

While his father is dying in his bed, Elie decides to give him his own ration of bread of soup. However, after doing this a man in the camp says, “I’ll give you a sound piece of advice--don’t give your ration of bread and soup to your old father. There’s nothing you can do for him. And you’re killing yourself.” (pg. 115) . At this point in the book Elie himself realised that by helping and staying with his family made him go through much more hassle than what was necessary. After his dad passed Elie thought, “I might perhaps have found something like--free at last!” (pg. 116). He gathered that his father was keeping him from making the most of plight