Theme Essay On Night By Elie Wiesel

In night there were many times when Elie and his dad wanted to give up but they did not because they had each other. They used family to get through the terrible things that were happening to not only them but millions like them. Before the concentration

In the beginning of the story Elie Wiesel and his father were not that close. He says his father worked a lot. This is how Wiesel describes him “My father was a cultured, rather unsentimental. He rarely displayed his feelings not even with his family, and was more involved with the welfare of others than of his own kin”(Wiesel 4). He describes him as a man that worked and didn’t really express his feelings to anyone. Him and his father weren’t that close. Throughout all the events that happen to them in the book he then realizes family is the only thing he has now and he doesn’t want to lose him. Later on, they’re sent to camp and Elie Wiesel and his father are together and that is when they become closer. When they were at these concentration camps he says, “ I tightend my grip on my father’s hand. The old ,familiar fear not to lose him”(Wiesel 104). Before they weren’t that close, later on when they went to these camps they were faced with inhumanity. That got them closer. Now, he feared to lose his father. In the end, this demonstrates that when they faced these cruel things they learned to be closer to each other because they don’t want anything to happen to one

The one person in Elie’s life that means everything to him is his father. During his time in the concentration camps, Elie’s bond with his father

In a couple of instances Elie is glad to have his dad and to not have ended up alone. When they first arrived to the camp “men and women were separated Elie stays connected to his dad as best as he could so he didn’t lose him”. In another instance Elie was glad to have his father with him as they struggled through tough times together. As Elie and his

Night is a novel written from the perspective of a Jewish teenager, about his experiences

When Elie and his father first entered the camps, his father was struck and Elie did nothing to help his father: "What had happened to me? My father had just been struck, in front of me, and I had not even blinked. Only yesterday, I would have dug my nails in this criminal's flesh" (39). This shows that, although Elie did not share a close relationship with his father, he still feels that he should stand up for his fahter for the fact that they are father and son. Elie is very violent in that he would have "dug his nails in the criminals' flesh." Evidently, Elie is furious towards the offender. Unfortunately, Elie does not do anything when his father is struck because he does not want to draw attention to himself. Nevertheless, the bond between Elie and his father does strengthen: "And what if he were dead, as well? He was not moving. Suddenly the evidence overwhelmed me: there is no longer any reason to live, any reason to fight" (98-99). Elie reveals that he truly depends on his father for survival. Because he believes his father is no longer alive, he loses all hope for surviavl. Although Elie expresses anger towards his father from time to time because he is being a burden, he still feels that his survival is meaningless without his father. The strong bond that the two developed once they entered the concentration camps proves that nothing can come between them so easily.

Elie is watching over his father and fights for him to keep going until he no longer can. It’s in the emotional moments that they come together. “We had never understood one another so clearly.” (Weisel 65) They are seeking to understand each other and through having this emotional moment together where they are both vulnerable, they become closer than they had ever been. Without them fighting to keep one another alive they had multiple opportunities where they could’ve fallen into death. “We’ll look after each other.”(Wiesel 85) They say this while they sit in the cold both needing sleep but also knowing that falling into a deep sleep means death. When his father becomes ill Eliezer fights and begs for his father to not let go. “After my father’s death, nothing could touch me anymore.” After using so much of his energy and putting it into his father, fighting for him to stay alive he feels like nothing matters because the only thing that remained through everything was his

Nearing the end of their arduous journey, the mutual dependence was slowly dwindling as Elie began to have to take care of his father. One example of this is when his father was sick and in the camp infirmary and had not been fed so Elie “gave him what was left of [his] soup. But [his] heart was heavy. [He] was aware that [he] was doing it grudgingly,’ (107). Being that he did this grudgingly, the reader is shown that, to Elie, taking care of his father had become more of an unwanted task rather than a kind action coming from his heart. Elie begins to see his own father as a thorn in his side much rather than his source support. His father is no longer there as a person who will provide motivation to survive but now instead a burden. In another instance, still in the infirmary, when his father pleaded for water and the officer came to silence him, Elie states, “ I didn’t move.

All three fathers came to this terrible place with their sons. Only one father survived after their sons left them. Elie didn’t want to leave his father, he was the last thing that kept his father alive. Elie would do anything to be with his father. The other sons changed, they knew that their fathers were falling behind. Elie didn’t let his father fall behind he pushed him to stay alive.

After marching outside in the freezing weather for days, Elie’s father starts to sleep in the convoy. During his sleep, two “gravediggers” enter the convoy and assume that Elie’s father, Shlomo Wiesel, is dead and they try to throw him out to make room. Elie refuses to believe that his father is dead and desperately tries to wake him up, throwing himself at his body (99). Elie goes into great detail how he tried to wake his father up, saying “I slapped him. I rubbed his hands, crying” and “I started to hit him harder and harder. At last, my father half opened his eyes” (99). Without Elie being there to wake his father up, Shlomo would have been thrown outside in the cold, left to die. Later on, when Elie’s father is deathly ill with dysentery, Elie takes the role of a caregiver and helps his father live a little longer. He would take his father back to his cot and help him lie down (109). Elie also starts to give his father extra rations of bread and water even though deep down, Elie knows it won’t help cure his father from his illness. Every time Elie’s dad pleaded for water, Elie knew “that he must not drink. But he pleaded with me so long that I gave in” (110). Mr. Wiesel relied on Elie more than ever at this time in his life to help him stay alive for one more day even though his future was bleak. Although Shlomo was getting weaker by the day, he needed Elie, his only son, to stay with him and help

One internal conflict Elie experienced was the loss of all of his family. While he was in the concentration camps, he and his father were the only ones in his family that were left. “My hand tightened its grip on my father. All I could think of was not to lose him. Not to remain alone,” which was stated on page 30, explains how he and his father were all that were left and his father would have to be there for Elie during that time. They fought hard together through the cold nights

In the beginning of the book, before experiencing life threatening difficulties, Elie was much more determined to stay with his family (in order to survive). Eliezer thought that his father was what kept him going and gave him strength, he was certain that the right thing to do was to stay with his dad. In chapter 3 Wiesel states, “My hand tightened its grip on my father. All I could think of was not to lose him. Not to remain alone” (30). In these sentences, Elie explains that he and his father needed to stay together. This quote also shows what Elie’s emotions were; he was scared to suffer through the concentration camp alone. Elie also shows his need for family when he says, “Franek, the foreman, assigned me to a corner... ‘Please, sir ... I’d like to be near

Elie’s thoughts and actions reflect his reliance on his father in the camp. When he is going through selection for a komodo, he begs, “I want to stay with my father” page 48.

Mr.Wiesel felt the need to care of his son and knew they had to stick together to stay alive and survive but near the end Mr.Wiesel became very ill and had dysentery, leading from the time he became ill, the roles got reversed and Elie felt the need to take care of his father. So Elie did whatever he could to keep his father alive by giving him some of his rations, helped him up when his father was too weak to stand up by himself, and more. Then Mr.Wiesel became even more weak and his time was up soon, Elie did his best to try and help his father survive but had been taken from the barracks due to the people having to remove all of the dead bodies from the barracks, so when Elie woke up from his discomforting slumber, his father was gone.

The novel “Night” was written by Elie Wiesel and is a memoir of his life during World War II. The book starts with his life living in Hungary with his family. It then tells of how they were taken away to concentration camps throughout the war. During Elie’s stays at the various camps you see the sacrifices he makes and how the experience changes him.