Selfishness In Night By Elie Wiesel

People have survived many situations throughout the years. Some of the these situations have been life threatening and some have not been that bad. These situations have left people wrenched, mortified, and distressed. Elie Wiesel in Night is innocent, desperate, and numb. Overall, Wiesel is left broken. Night was written by Elie Wiesel and the book is about his personal experience about being a victim of the Holocaust.

“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” - George Bernard Shaw. George Shaw’s famous quote describes that to achieve, you must change yourself. On May 1944, Elie Wiesel and his family were forced out from his home in Sighet, Romania to live in Auschwitz, Germany. He and his two older sisters survived the holocaust, Elie then wrote his experience in 1960. During the span of the book, “Night” by Elie Wiesel, the novel demonstrates that traumatic events can change a person drastically. In the beginning, Elie lived with his family in Germany, his mother, his father, and his three siblings. The Germans forced the Jews to hand over their valuables, live in ghettos and finally moving them to concentration camps, including Elie’s family. He was disunited from his mother and three siblings, but managed to stay with his father. At first when he entered the camp he was pessimistic and discouraged when he saw the townspeople crying including his father. After, Elie then learned to take care of himself and his father during tragic events, he stuck to his ambitions and values which led him to go through many obstacles , despite the limitations, and be free of the camp of Auschwitz. As he set out Eliezer was an immature and carefree 15 year old who developed into a responsible young adult.

The 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln once stated “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power” (“Too Much Power Qoutes” AZ Quotes). Under the leadership of Adolph Hitler, the Nazi Party tore away the basic rights of human beings based upon the belief of anti-semitism. People of Jewish faith were persecuted to unimaginable limits, and their normal everyday lives were changed for forever. Article Five of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” (United Nations General Assembly). Throughout Elie Wiesel’s autobiography Night, Elie and his family are violated of this right as a Jewish family during the Holocaust.

The human condition is a very malleable idea that is constantly changing due to the current state of mankind. In the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel, the concept of the human condition is displayed in the worst sense of the concept, during the Holocaust of WWII. During this time, multiple groups of people, most notably European Jews, were persecuted against and sent to horrible hard labor and killing centers such as Auschwitz. In this memoir, Wiesel uses complex figurative language such as similes and metaphors to display the theme that a person’s state as a human, both at a physical and emotional level, can be altered to extreme lengths, and even taken away from them under the most extreme conditions.

In Night by Elie Wiesel, the author reflects on his own experience of being separated from his family and eventually his own religion. This separation was not by any means voluntary, they were forced apart during the Holocaust. Wiesel was a Jew when the invasion of Hungary occurred and the Germans ripped members of his religion away from their home in Sighet. A once peaceful community where Wiesel learned to love the Kabbalah was now home to only dust and lost memories. Most members of that Jewish community were never to return, hell greeted them with open arms as they walked through the now rusty gates of Auschwitz. In order to survive unimaginable circumstances that were enforced in these camps, a boy had to hang on to his humanity. But by no means did humanity stay with the boy, being subjected to the horror of concentration camps, Auschwitz and Buchenwald, Elie Wiesel saw first-hand how members of other communities attempt to silence opposing voices. All of the pain that Wiesel saw inspired him to keep watch and tell stories for people who wouldn’t live on to tell them for their own families. Stories are what keeps a person alive and through Eliezer’s words that he puts down many are able to get a sense of closure in knowing what occurred at these camps. One story occurred on the first train ride away from home, a lady named Madame Schächter was beaten up for crying out against imminent death, unseen by others.

Sacrifice can come in many different ways, and for many different desires. In the book Night, by Elie Wiesel, the book gives the readers the experience of the time during World War Two, when the Holocaust was occurring. Never seen his mother and sisters again, he goes on this strenuous and relentless journey in Auschwitz, along with his father, where they both endure through the true harsh trial of the holocaust. During this grim time, people sacrifice themselves for those they love because sacrifice express love as its strongest, shows loyalty to others, and speaking out for others is shown as a sign of kindness.

The holocaust is the most deadly genocide in the world that impacted millions of life by controlling and running life because of one mean man. In Elie Wiesel memoir, The Night is describing his own experience before, during and after the holocaust. He describes in meticulous details his experience in the concentration camps such as Auschwitz and Buna with is father. Wiesel depicts how the Nazi slowly destructs every interpersonal relationship in the Jews community. Within the autobiography, Wiesel shows how the interpersonal relationships are important within the population in general, in the concentration camp and in more precisely with is own relationship with his family.

In Night, altruism is what separates man from beast. Humans as a species differ from the majority of the animal kingdom in their willingness to sacrifice their own well-being for the benefit of others. To be human is to be compassionate and caring for your fellow man. In Night, Elie Wiesel shows that humanity is [usurpable]. Subjected to the inhuman conditions of the Nazi concentration camps, his sense of altruism and compassion essentially disappear, leaving only animalistic self-interest and the instinct to survive.

Cruelty surrounds the world constantly, and is used frequently in works of literature to reveal certain things about the theme. In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, acts of cruelty are used to express the theme and enhance its message. One of the largest themes revealed by these acts is “man’s inhumanity to man,” which includes mistreatment of Jews by the Nazis, the common people, and other Jews. Watching the large amounts of violence, abuse, and discrimination that occur in this memoir show us the horrors of the Holocaust and how it transformed the men and women who it experienced it, as well as those who caused it.

Injustice brings anger and fear to everyone. It could cause someone to act unconsciously or hide to wait for an end. Injustice shapes our history, proven by the French Revolution, the Holocaust, and 9/11. Yet these events are history, what is the right way to respond and end injustice? Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor and writer, wrote many forms of literacy including Night that shares his experiences and actions during the Holocaust and “We Choose Honor” an article that features 9/11 and the United States’s response to it. Similarly, Maurice Ogden’s poem “The Hangman” demonstrates the flaws that occur when a population refuses to confront authority or injustice. Wiesel argues that the right way to respond to an act of injustice is to work as a group with your peers to solve the situation. Wiesel is correct in his belief of solving injustice because humans, at their core, are social beings that are more likely to succeed helping each other, and a group of humans is more intimidating and have more power to overcome injustice.

After going through an event as traumatic as the Holocaust, I do not know how anyone could be the same. Viktor Frankl said that Holocaust survivors suffered “moral deformity” and “apathy”, meaning that they no longer had the same thought process as most people have and suffered from a lack of concern and enthusiasm. Even for Elie, the main character in the book Night by Elie Wiesel, began doing things he would have never thought and was not as empathetic after his experiences. I think it is safe to say that all survivors of the Holocaust went on to live their lives with a different mindset that others due to the horrible conditions they lived in.

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).

In his autobiography Night and in his article “How Can We Understand Their Hatred?,” Elie Wiesel claims that indifference is the primary catalyst of fanaticism and therefore terrorism. Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, has been the voice of millions of Jews who had also experienced the Holocaust first hand. Wiesel wrote Night to educate others of the problems caused by indifference and fanaticism during his childhood. In Night, Wiesel recalls Jews as lesser beings to the German Nazis because they looked at the Jews with utter contempt. In the article “How Can We Understand Their Hatred?,” Wiesel compares the terrorists responsible for 9/11 to the Nazis, as they were both unconcerned of the victims’ well-being, a direct result of indifference. Through his works, Wiesel hopes that readers never forget the harsh times of fanatic influences as it unites humanity to see one common belief: fanaticism must be abolished. Indifference always emboldens the tormentor and never the victims, so to overcome fanaticism, we must not succumb to indifference by educating ourselves.

Auschwitz is one of the many concentration camps in the nazi territory, this leads to the book “Night” which is written by Elie Wiesel. In the book, Elie was actually in a concentration camp and experienced all the hangings, beatings, and burnings of the jewish people. Thankfully, Elie was able to escape and lived to tell his past experiences in the camps,I also think that Wiesel did a good job at illustrating, which leads into the themes survival and dehumanization, Elizar did a good job at illustrating these two themes in the book he experienced the both of them.

Stories of our lives Have you ever pondered on how our life stories reflect on our identity? This question will make anyone think about how their actions give sight on what they believe in or what their morals are. The struggles in someone's life is part of their life's story. How they deal with their struggles gives others a view of their identity.