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Selfishness In Night By Elie Wiesel

Decent Essays

The memoir,”Night”, shows the perspective of Elie Wiesel, a young boy that was sent to a concentration camp alongside hundreds of other Jews, that lost their valuables , faith and family.The terror within the concentration camp slowly deteriorate the Jews ,physically and mentally.The jews had a choice to be selfish or selfless,given the jews’ situation it is best to do what was in their best interest. Throughout Elie Wiesel’s memoir, “Night”; many individuals had a hard time navigating the brutality within the concentration camps.Through these times of brutality, many people in the camp had to choose to either be selfish or altruistic. Given the jew’s situation, it is better to act selfish than to be altruistic. Selfishness helps reduce the emotional trauma. This is shown throughout the memoir. An example of this would be when a father[Stein] was looking for his wife and kids, “I heard people say that a transport has arrived from your region and I came to look for you. I thought you might have some news of Reizel and my two small boys who stayed in Antwerp…(pg.43)”. Elie did not know the location of his wife but decided to lie to help him from breaking down, “Yes, my mother did hear from them.Reizel is fine.So are the children…(pg.45)”. If Elie decided to say no , he may have went on a rampage and may have gotten himself killed. By lying, Elie gave Mr.Stein some hope.This didn’t help Mr.Stein in the long run because after finding out about the location of his wife and

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