Religion 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.

“I have not lost faith in God [despite] moments of anger and protest; sometimes I have been closer to him for that reason.” Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel explains the struggle of his changing beliefs in God during the Holocaust in his memoir Night. In Night, Elie Wiesel, a religious boy, is taken to several concentration camps along with other Jews, and separated from everyone in his family except for his father. He and his father live dangerous lives in the concentration camps, from being beaten, watching other prisoners die, and being close to death, until eventually Elie’s father dies and the camp is liberated. As Elie Wiesel’s time in the Holocaust lengthens, his devoutness in God begins to diminish.

In every religion, the holy text or the preachers ask that their worshippers believe in some form of God. Most people can blindly pursue and believe in God without question, without inquisition. Then there are those who cannot aimlessly worship a possibly fictional God. The struggle comes when there is no validation, no confirmation, of God or anything that He ever did. During the Holocaust, an estimated six million Jews struggle with their faith in every concentration camp, including Elie Wiesel. In Night, Elie Wiesel uses tone, diction, and characterization to expose his internal battle with believing in his faith and seeing the others battle with their faith as well.

When one experiences that he cannot tolerate, he doubts his religion and his God's existence. Elie Wiesel's Night, a memoir of the author's experience of the Holocaust, shows that this hypothesis was true. In contrast to the beginning where Elie Wiesel considered praying as an unquestionable action, throughout his memoir, his faith in God gradually vanished as he experienced the "Hell". Elie Wiesel confided his change of the faith in God by the usage of dialogue, repetition, and irony.

“To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering” (Nietzsche). This quote, said by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, describes the desire to survive that was inside of Elie Wiesel in his story. The book describes Elie’s late teen years when he was sent to a concentration camp by the German government. In the book, he is separated from his whole family except for his old father, and both are put to work inside of the camp. As Elie suffers through the camp, his faith and his life face many tests and trials. There are many instances throughout the book when people die or when somebody loses their faith. The theme of the book Night, written by Elie Wiesel, is survival, as shown by the death of many Jews during the Holocaust, people willing to do anything to survive, and people’s faith not surviving the traumatic experiences of the concentration camps.

In the memoir Night, the narrator Elie Wiesel recounts a moment when he loses faith in God. ¨But there were those who said we should fast, precisely because it was dangerous to do so. We needed to show God that even here, locked in hell, we were capable of singing His praises¨ (Wiesel 69). Wiesel is losing faith in God and not believing in him. Wiesel believes that he could still pray for God, even though he thinks God does not answer his prayers. Two significant themes related to inhumanity discussed in the book Night by Elie Wiesel are losing faith in God and disbelief.

Night, written by Elie Wiesel, tells the terrifying experience in the concentration camps that many Jews were imprisoned in during World War II. Throughout most of the novel, Elie Wiesel tells about how many prisoners, including himself, lost faith in God. During the Holocaust many groups of people, especially Jews, were taken to concentrations camps and treated in the most inhumane way. Many were taken away from their homes, and lost everything that was once their own. In order to survive, many Jews encountered such brutal difficulties. They were worked to death, starved to death, killed, and all because they were Jews. Upon being taken away, many were unaware with what was happening outside their own homes.

At first glance, Night, by Eliezer Wiesel does not seem to be an example of deep or emotionally complex literature. It is a tiny book, one hundred pages at the most with a lot of dialogue and short choppy sentences. But in this memoir, Wiesel strings along the events that took him through the Holocaust until they form one of the most riveting, shocking, and grimly realistic tales ever told of history’s most famous horror story. In Night, Wiesel reveals the intense impact that concentration camps had on his life, not through grisly details but in correlation with his lost faith in God and the human conscience.

Night, by Elie Wiesel, showed the devastation of Eliezer’s childhood and illustrated the loss of innocence through the evil of others. Elie Wiesel expressed to us that one’s own faith and beliefs can be challenged through torture and ongoing suffering. The novel, Night, allowed the reader to witness the change in Eliezer from one of an innocent child who strongly adhered to his faith in God into a person who questioned not only his faith and God but of himself as well. The cruelty is shown to him while in the concentration camp forced him to wonder if there was a God and if so why would he put him and the others through such torture. Through his suffering, Eliezer’s beliefs dramatically and negatively changed his faith in God and compelled him to experience a transformative relationship with his father.

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.

The author demonstrates that an adverse atmosphere can cause a person to relinquish their faith. The author establishes the purpose through the sufferings of Moishe the Beadle, Wiesel’s torment and plight of other prisoners in the concentration camp.

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

The book Night tells the story of Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, and his time in concentration camps. Throughout the story, Elie slowly transitions from a devout man of faith, into another godless wandering soul among this earth, phased by all of the thing that he saw in the god- forsaken concentration camps. Before leaving his sleepy town of Sighet, Elie was so wrapped up in his faith, that he was somewhat naïve, believing every about God that he has heard. Yet, when he and his father arrive at the concentration camp, Elie starts to question his faith, he wonders how God would allow these mass amounts of death to happen. ‘For the first time, I felt anger rising within me. Why should I bless His name? What had I to thank him for?’(33). Elie, like most humans, had started to change what he believed in when things did not go his way. As he began to see the flames of children and families burning, he went on to say, ‘Never shall I forget the flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget these moments which murdered my god and my soul and dreams turned to dust’ (22). This, was the final moment that Elie Wiesel had faith in God. For a moment, he was just a scared little boy, trying to find someone to grasp his hand and comfort him in a time of need.

Elie Wiesel went through the Holocaust and wrote a story about his experiences. Throughout the story, Elie Wiesel develops three major themes. The theme that is most prominent in the story is “In extreme difficulty, man struggles to maintain faith in a benevolent God.” The book “Night” shows the human struggle to maintain faith. In the beginning of the book, Elie loses his faith in God very quickly. Elie ideology of a benevolent God is ruined by the abhorrent conditions and the lack of humane treatment in the concentration camps.

Religion carries many individuals through life’s joys and heartaches--in “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” Mary is one of them. She grows up in a Catholic family and then lives in a convent, where she finds her life’s purpose as a nun. After her marriage and life on the road with her husband, however, she loses her faith. Religion--the force that has once created a comforting and happy structure for her--is now diminished. After this “theological loss,” (Floyd pg. 258) Mary’s life shifts to turmoil. She endures the loss of a child due to the measles, gives birth in grotesque hotels, and loses her connection with her husband. She refuses to accept that her youngest son, Edmund, like her father, has consumption. And while dealing with this misery,