Cruelty and Emotional Death Within Night
The Holocaust was a pivotal point in history that changed the way people thought and would remember forever. In the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel, a common recurring theme was emotional death, or the absence of feeling. This pairs with the acts of physical and emotional cruelty within the concentration camps that Elie and his father face. When dealt with inhumane, intensive, and cruel labor, one can expect someone to become numb to the blows. A key point during the early point of Elie’s life is that Elie illustrates himself as spiritual and very invested in his faith, but from the duration of the Holocaust loses his faith. He asks himself why God would allow his people to suffer and not help them, stating
Elie loses complete faith in god in many points where god let him down. He struggles physically and mentally for life and no longer believes there is a god. Elie worked hard to save himself and asks god many times to help him and take him out of the misery he was facing. "Why should I sanctify his name? The Almighty, the eternal, and terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent..."(page 33). Elie was confused, because he doesn’t know why the Germans would kill his race amongst many others, and he does not know why god could let such thing happen to innocent people. "I did not deny god's existence, but I doubted his absolute justice..."(page 42). These conditions gave him confidence, and a courage to
Elie was a holocaust victim who was almost forced, by other jews, into a furnace, by order of the Nazis. “Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever” Elie was very religious before the Holocaust and yet on the first night at Auschwitz he lost his faith in God. He regained faith
In the first chapter of the book, set before the holocaust he is asked by a friend, on page 4, “Why do you pray.” Elie responds to this question with “Why do I pray? Strange question. Why did I live? Why did I breath?”. When he says this he refers to praying as the reason why he lives. This in turn shows how strong his faith really is. Elie’s faith is so strong that he cries while he prays. Elie in the beginning of the Holocaust is a perfect example of how prominent his faith was at the beginning of the holocaust.
Elie experiences internal conflict due to the events that took place during the Holocaust. He starts to question God and begins to rebel against God while enduring an identity crisis at the concentration camp. To begin with, Elie is showing some resentment and displeasure towards God. He’s showing his disapproval regarding God’s allowance for letting his people be tortured. For example, on page 66 he says, “What are You, my God?
Elie endured so much mental damage at his young age that it made their mental state irreversible. Elie’s story is truly inspiring, having survived one of history’s most heartbreaking, detrimental, and antisemitic events in World History. Before he was imprisoned by the Nazis, Elie lived a very religious life. God was whom he would turn to in need, and the Holocaust altered that. The division between men and women forced Elie to stay by his father’s side for the next two years in brutal, unhumane conditions.
In the end Elie questions his faith more than reevaluate, what he had been taught as a child. He has become an unemotional man. He had since the worst to the point where he for as forsaken his faith. A result of experiences during the Holocaust, Elie Wiesel changes from a religious,sensitive little boy to spiritually dead,unemotional
Yet, Elie survived and many Jews died. Prior to the Holocaust Elie's had a strong faith, as he encounted difficulties, he started questioning his faith and afterwards he losses his entire faith. In the beginning of the book, Elie has strong faith in God. When Elie packs and leaves with his family to the concentration camp, he feels sad and has much hope that his family and him will survive at the camp.
Have you ever experienced hopelessness after a traumatic event? Elie Wiesel's book, Night, depicts his traumatic experiences during his time in the concentration camp. He was stripped of his belongings, humanity, and identity. Initially, Elie Wiesel is an innocent boy leading a carefree life, but after his time in the concentration camp, he is a soulless man who sees death when he looks at himself. At the beginning of the book, Elie expresses himself as an innocent boy.
As Elie experiences life in the concentration camps, his views on God change and no longer consume him. Elie had begun to lose his faith as the summer had come to an end. He said, “Blessed to be in God’s name. Why, but why should I bless Him? Every fiber in me rebelled.
But this faith is shaken by his experience during the Holocaust. Elie has grown up believing that everything on Earth reflects God’s holiness and power. His faith is grounded in the idea that God is everywhere, all the time. Eliezer’s faith in the goodness of the world is irreparably shaken, however, by the cruelty and evil he witnesses during the Holocaust. He wonders how a powerful God could be part of such wickedness and how a God could permit
The holocaust is one of the world's most tragic events, approximately 6 million Jews died and the concentration camp Auschwitz is the world's largest human cemetery, yet it has no graves. In Elie Wiesel's autobiographical memoir Night, he writes about his dehumanizing journey in the concentration camp, Auschwitz. Firstly, Elie experiences the loss of love and belonging when he is separated from his mother, sisters, and eventually his father. Also, the lack of respect that the Nazis showed the prisoners which lead to the men, including Elie to feel a sense of worthlessness in the camp. Finally, the lack of basic necessities in the camp leads to the men physically experiencing dehumanization. As a result, all these factors contribute to the
For my essay I will be talking about how Elie and the other Jews continued to have faith in a god that allowed these things to happen to them and why their god didn’t intervene when they were praying for help. I will also be talking about what might Elie say today. At the beginning of the story, Elie was a very religious person. Everyday he would go the old temple that had been destroyed and cry. Elie starts to studying Kabbalah, a Jewish mystical text.
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,
Traumatic and scarring events occur on a daily basis; from house fires to war, these memories are almost impossible to forget. The Holocaust is only one of the millions of traumas that have occurred, yet it is known worldwide for sourcing millions of deaths. Elie Wiesel was among the many victims of the Holocaust, and one of the few survivors. In the memoir, “Night”, by Elie Wiesel, Elie, the main character, is forever changed because of his traumatic experiences in the Auschwitz concentration camps.
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,