The Power Of Inhumanity In Night By Elie Wiesel

In the memoir Night, Elie Wiesel uses his change in faith to show that extreme conditions, such as the Holocaust, will drastically alter how one sees and takes the world in. Elie’s faith in God started out strong and prominent and was quickly questioned as the horrible experiences of the Holocaust carried on which, in the end, resulted in the death of his beliefs in God and religion.

The Holocaust, or a jewish sacrificial offering that is burned on an alter, largely refers to the massacre and slaughter of over 6 million european jews from 1933 to 1945. One of the largest genocides took place less than 100 years ago. A recently fresh event on the historical timeline, and yet there would be little known on exactly went on inside the camps without the testimonies of survivors. Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, produced the book “Night” as a way to cope with his time in the labor camps and to shed light on the reality of the inhumanity that engulfed numerous concentration camps across europe. After ten years of silence, the book was written by Wiesel to express his personal experiences inside the labor camps, as well as his testimony to horrifying and inhumane actions inflicted upon his beloved family and bunk mates. In “Night”, Elie Wiesel explores the evils in humanity by sharing his personal experiences and personal witness of inhumanity, and shares his own moral values of man.

“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.

Imagine, people at your feet, doing everything you ask, raising you higher and better than everyone else. Does it feel good to live a life of luxury? Some would give up everything they have to achieve this fantasy, and the ones who finally have it never let it go. This is what it is like to have power and most abuse it. In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, it follows a young boy named Elie, through a tragic event called the holocaust. Through so many traumatizing moments of fear and helplessness gives the ongoing theme of power, or the abuse of power. Power is something that an individual gains by asserting authority over others and can influence what they do or what happens. In this case many people that took part in the holocaust abused their power to accomplish extreme genocide. The abuse of power originated from Hitler, onto the people who ran the concentration camps, and to the people directly looking over the mistreated Jews.

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.

Faith is like a little seed; if you think about the positive aspects of a situation, then it will grow, like a seed grows when you water it. However, if the seed does not receive water anymore, it will die, which serves as a parallel to the horrors and antagonism of the concentration camps that killed Elie’s faith. After the analysis of the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel, the reader can visualize the horrors and slaughter of millions of innocent people that occurred in concentration camps. Throughout the book, Wiesel explains how his faith in God was tested, as he was forced to leave his home, separated from his family, and observed the death all around him; he even witnessed children being thrown into huge ditches of fire alive. Elie felt abandoned, betrayed, and deceived by the God that he knew who was a loving and giving God. It was then he started to doubt His existence. Elie tried to hold on to his faith, but the childhood innocence had disappeared from within him, and he lost his faith in God completely.

After experiencing life similar to hell on earth for nearly a year very few people could truthfully say that their faith is unscathed. Even in the modern world, people who have not been starved and pushed to work beyond their limits find themselves questioning whether or not there is a god, and if he is a just one. Throughout Night, a Holocaust memoir, it is shown that faith does not only refer to religion, but also the belief that humanity is sympathetic and warm-hearted. Elie Wiesel, author of Night, demonstrates how he loses his faith and watches those around him lose their confidence in God, and each other. Wiesel shares his thoughts with the readers writing how from a very young age he believed profoundly yet within a few months Wiesel finds himself questioning “Where is God?” (61). Loss of faith only propels Wiesel to find the strength within himself to persevere until his day of liberation.

The human race has always struggled with the simple task of being humane. This started with the people killing over land, all the way to terrible events, such as the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel does a great job in his book, Night, talking about some of the things the Nazis did. The Nazis treated the Jewish people in the most inhumane way history has ever seen. The book approaches this just by throwing it directly in one’s face. Elie has a lot to say about humanity and inhumanity, as does Morrie Schwartz. Morrie is a Professor at Brandeis University and does a great job explaining why humanity should overcome inhumanity. Both Elie and Morrie agree that humanity and inhumanity were both very big things in their lifetime and humanity can be achieved through love, and concern for others.

"Night" by Elie Wiesel is "A slim volume of terrifying power" (The New York Time), the novel is concerning the tragic events that occurred during the Holocaust. The first section of the memoir raises an internal conflict, regarding the Jews of Sighet being ignorant about the terrifying events that are occurring outside their small town. This conflict is created when Moishe the Beadle escaped from the Gestapo and returned to Sighet to warn the Jews of the crisis, which is happening right under their noses. This is shown in the following quote, "he went from one Jewish house to the next, telling his story" (7), despite warning his community of the dangers that are progressing towards them, the Jews of Sighet ignored him and did not believe Moishe. The ignorance of the Jews is shown when

Inhumanity. The cruelest of people are responsible for this. In Night, Elie Wiesel uses imagery, tone, and characterization to show the effects of inhumane actions. Night is about a young boy and his father who get separated from the rest of their family during selection of the Holocaust. This story tells how Elie survived his times in the concentration camps, even with all of the inhumane actions of the Germans.

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 is a brutally honest memoir of much of Elie Wiesel’s childhood. When Wiesel was young he was very devoted to his Religion, asking questions and reading scripture. When the trains were loaded Wiesel no longer had the words to express his disdain. After setting foot in Auschwitz Wiesel felt abandoned by god and no longer believed God was not righteous. Rightful decision he watched children burn, men get shot, women disappear to never return. Despite all this Wiesel never truly lost his religion explaining “I was not denying His existence, but I doubted His absolute justice.”(45,Wiesel). As time passes faith was restored and like many Holocaust survivors Wiesel is still Jewish and was proud to tell the world about it to the day he died.

The quote “Man’s inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn” is very relevant in the Holocaust texts Night by Elie Wiesel and The Last Days directed by James Moll because it really sums up the Holocaust. Both these texts give insight to what happened inside the camps and how the survivors were changed forever. These texts both show that in times of extreme inhumanity, one can lose his faith, which leads to a loss of innocence.

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