Symbolism In Night By Elie Wiesel

While Elie was in the concentration camp he changed the way he acted. This new behavior led him to develop new character traits. While Ellie was in the concentration camp he became angry at many things. For example “I would have dug my nails into the criminals flesh” (Wisel 39). Elie shows extreme anger when the Nazi officials are beating Elie’s father. Elie was angry because the Nazi soldiers were not treating them nicely and keeping them in poor conditions. Elie was usually not a person to display anger, but he shows this when his family members are being hurt. Elie wants to stand up for what is right and for his family members. Despite his studying, Elie wavered in his belief in Kabbalah while he was at the camp. Elie was a religious boy before he went to Auschwitz, but while in the camp, he became angry at God. In the book Elie says, “‘Where are You, my God?’” (66). Elie is wondering why God is not helping the Jews. Elie had complete faith in his religion until he experienced and witnessed such horrible suffering. He had been taught that God will punish evil and save the righteous. However, when Elie saw that God was not helping the Jews situation,

Eliezer went from being extremely religious to questioning in anger about God’s ways. He shows that only in the lowest moments does he turn his back on God, yet in times of need he prays towards God. By the end of the book, Eliezer is still undecided; he is no longer devout,

It’s in these moments that Eliezer has lost all faith he had in humanity and religion, which he

Eliezer was taught that God is supposed to be filled with good, yet as he goes through the Holocaust, he thinks that maybe God doesn't exist at all . As he and his father are walking through Auschwitz, he sees the Nazi's burning babies in a large pit. While his father began whispering to himself the prayer for the dead, reciting "may his name be blessed and magnified...," Eliezer asks himself, thinking that he would be burned as well, "Why should I bless his name? The Eternal, Lord of the Universe...was silent. What had I to thank him for?"(Page 31) This is the beginning of his lack of faith in god. As Eliezer and his father were together in Buna, an occasional public hanging would take place. Hangings were executed not only for those that committed a crime, but also for the prisoners of the camp, in order to learn a lesson from the accused. In Buna, one of three prisoners who were hung was a little boy, who was a servant of a member of the resistance group in the camp. Once the boy was publicly hung, the boy was still alive, just hanging there on the noose for about half an hour. As the prisoners in the camp were forced to watch the hanging, they began to cry. Eliezer said that even though there were so many hangings, this was the first time everyone was crying. At that moment, a prisoner asked out loud "Where is God now?"(Page 62) and Eliezer answered to himself "Where is he?

In the concentration camp Eliezer can’t understand why God allows so much death and destruction, and even though he is angry and questions God he never loses his faith. Although Eliezer never has his questions answered he never loses his faith. Eliezers evolving relationship with God is a major source of character development for himself.

In the memoir Night, by Elie Wiesel, the word night is repeatedly used as a metaphor symbolizing the conditions and emotions that the Jews struggle with during the Holocaust. Elie’s personal struggle with his experience evoke connotations of darkness that describe the inhumane treatment that Elie and the Jews are forced to endure throughout the memoir. In the beginning, Elie's town is invaded by German soldiers and soon, the Germans force all of the town's Jews to evacuate. After being thrown onto a freight train to Auschwitz, Elie experiences a whole new world filled with fear and hatred. Elie uses “night” to describe the struggles and hardships that he encounters throughout his experience. The literal meaning of the word night is simply the period of darkness everyday between sunset and sunrise. However, the metaphorical meaning of night, in this memoir, is far more sinister. As depicted in Night, the title metaphorically refers to the evil, hopelessness, and emotional coldness that the Jews are constantly forced to face throughout the Holocaust.

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

Even though Eliezer was able to persevere, he was dehumanized by the Nazi’s in an atrocious and cold-blooded fashion. When a human is emotionally and physically stripped of their pride, it weakens his or her will to live. The Nazis targeted the Jews' humanity, and slowly dissolved their feeling of being an independant human. Elie Wiesel states “He took his time between lashes, only the first really hurt...twenty-four…twenty-five. It was over. I had not realized it but I had fainted.” (Wiesel 62). In the case of the Jews doing anything askew, they were to be punished in barbaric ways. This whipping by the Nazi’s had a drastic affect on Eliezer's identity, because before his punishment Eliezer had not yet altered his inquisitive mindset. Eliezer was at the wrong place at the wrong time, and as a result he was thrashed and trounced on by one of the German soldiers. This traumatized Eliezer and brought fear upon him, changing his attitude.

As a 12-year-old boy living with his family in the town of Sighet, Eliezer was a devout and studious Orthodox Jew studying both the Talmud and the Kabbalah and faithfully following Jewish law. When asked why did he pray, he thought it was such a strange question, his faith is shown when he thinks to himself, “Why did I pray? Why did I live? Why did I breathe?” (Wiesel 4). He believes that God is everywhere and since God is everywhere and we are all a reflection of God that good must be everywhere and within everyone. Unfortunately, once the Germans move into his town

Over the course of his time there, he is worked hard and witnesses horrific deaths. Because of all the traumatic events that occurred, he lost faith in the God he once believed in unconditionally. John Roth, author of In the Beginning, explained that the holocaust could only have happened if there was no God (35). However this is not true. In actuality, Eliezer explains that there is a God, he just does not believe in His power anymore. Elie does not say that he has become an atheist or that God had died as many people believe” (Brown 72). Elie simply does not believe in Him because of all the events that occurred while he was in the concentration camps.

As a child growing up in Sighet, Eliezer and his family looks much like an ordinary and close knit family today. That is until they were “taken away” where all control over life is striped away and as a result has his destiny chose by chance (Wiesel 22). During his time in Auschwitz, he has no choice of what he does. His only choice is to fight to survive. Eliezer simply does what he is told, when he is told, so he is not punished.

In the camps, Elie’s faith was not shaken immediately even though he was quickly exposed to many atrocities. People around him took the evil as a punishment for some unknown crime the Jewish people had committed before God. In the face of all the suffering, Elie noted a feeling of guilt for those in his camps because of how they did not protest and fight back as much as he believed they could have. Others that did not feel as guilty believed that God had a good reason for punishing the Jews. They thought it must be a test, “God is testing us. He wants to find out whether we can dominate our base instincts and kill the Satan within us. We have no right to despair. And if he punishes us relentlessly, it 's a sign that he loves us all the more” (Wiesel, 42). The faith of the Jewish people helped to delay the revolution that might have erupted in the camps. The younger people felt it would be better to die fighting than to go like lambs to the slaughter. They had knives and a strong will. But their elders reminded them, “ ‘You must never lose faith, even when the sword hangs over your head. That 's the teaching of our sages . . .’ ” (Wiesel, 29). The younger people were willing to respect the faith of the elders as long as the elders were willing to accept God 's

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,

Eliezer’s religious views undergo extreme change through his tragic and harsh journey since he was forcefully moved away from his tranquil life to an inhumane concentration. At first, he was very devote and enthusiastic about religion, not only because his father was a religious leader, but because of his genuine interest. He even pressured his father to allow him to study more advanced religious topic. But as soon as his family is taken away from his and murdered, he begins to question whether God exists, since he once believed he would stop any suffering from happening. As part of his religious questioning, he mentions how various instances of “betrayal” by Adam and Eve, Noah’s generation, and Sodom that caused God to punish their wrongdoings.

When the holocaust started and Eliezer’s family got moved to the ghetto he questioned god but, didn’t think much of it. Then when his mother and sister got separated and killed, he was angry with god. He started questioning god and everything around him. He just couldn’t believe that god could let so many innocent people be murdered.