Transition Of Faith In Elie Wiesel's Night

Every man, woman, or child has his or her breaking point, no matter how hard they try to hold it back. In Night by Elie Wiesel the main theme of the entire book is the human living condition. The quality of human life is overwhelming because humans have the potential to make amazing discoveries that help all humans. Elie Wiesel endures some of the most cruel living conditions known to mankind. This essay explains the themes of chapter one, chapter four, chapter eight in Night by Elie Wiesel.

Night is a dramatic book that tells the horror and evil of the concentration camps that many were imprisoned in during World War II. Throughout the book the author Elie Wiesel, as well as many prisoners, lost their faith in God. There are many examples in the beginning of Night where people are trying to keep and strengthen their faith but there are many more examples of people rebelling against God and forgetting their religion.

“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.

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.

Wiesels faith in god went on a rollercoaster during the Holocaust. At the beginning of the book Wiesel mentioned how him and his friends stayed in the synagogue during all hours of the day, meaning that his faith in god is very strong. On page 27 wiesel was very thankful for his relationship with god. Wiesel mention that his “god was murdered” during the middle of the book Night (Wiesel 34). On page 77 Wiesel said something along the lines of why should he be merciful to god as he is “a simple creature of flesh and bone”. Around page 35 Wiesel was thanking god though which was confusing to me, as on page 34 he talked about his god being murdered.

I have begun reading Night by Elie Wiesel. This novel is about the events that Elie Wiesel endured as a teenager and harrowing truths about the holocaust. The first chapter was quickly paced and straightforward. A major part of Eli’s day was studying. A man Elie meets named Moishe the Beadle begins to cause him to question his faith and why he prays. The man is definitely different and this later causes the community to miss a warning sign of their impending doom. Moishe the Beadle is a foreign jew and is taken away months earlier than the other jews. He witnesses and miraculously survives a mass murder of foreign jews by faking dead. After returning to Sighet he attempt to warn the residents of what happened but no one believed him. This is important because at this time there were still visas available but since no one could fathom the idea of an attack on a whole population that included millions no one listened. Eli thinks, “Annihilate an entire people? Wipe out a population dispersed throughout so many nations? So many millions of people! By what means?” (8) I liked this explanation in the book because most holocaust books brush over the reason of not leaving when they sensed conflict besides fear and this seemed much more logical in the fact that it does appear to be unbelievable.

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

For many people in the world they have their own religions and beliefs. For some this can be a great part of their life. With it being such a great part with their life, it might be the only thing keeping them going through the day. Keeping faith can be hard during hardship some stages some people might experience would be devotion, questioning faith and finally losing faith.

In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie starts losing faith in his Jewish beliefs. Multiple times in the book Elie says quotes that show his anger and disappointment with what he sees every day in the concentration camps. In this essay I will be showing many examples from different quotes on why Elie begins losing his faith.

At the beginning of Night, Eliezer describes himself as someone who believes “Profoundly.” However, as the book carries on, that tends to change. The experiences he goes through changes him as a person.

In the beginning, Elie was just like any other religious boy who believed in god or whoever he prayed every night in the synagogue. He was a happy and safe young prodigy who focused on school; his parents ran a shop with his other siblings. Kids were running in the streets; life seemed normal and tranquil for a while, until it wasn’t any longer. Once the Germans came into their town, everything changed for Elie and his family. Throughout the book Night, Elie goes from being devout to being skeptical during his entire journey.

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.

Elie's struggle with his faith to God is a major internal conflict he has with him self in the book Night. In the beginning of the book, his faith in God is completly untoched. When questiond about his faith and why he would pray to God, he ask, “Why did I pray? Why did I live? Why did I breathe?”( Winsel Pg 2) His belief in a powerful and able God is untouched, and he cannot think of living without his faith in his religions practices, as it has been one of the main guides in his life. But this faith he has is shaken by his experience during the Holocaust and the events that took place, what he lives and what he sees.

In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel the main message is that many people are losing faith in each other and everything. Once someone lose their faith, they lose their faith in God and they start to just give up on what their main focus was. People can start losing their faith once they see things that should be seen. It starts to scare them and their faith is lost. Elie started to slowly lose his faith once he was separated with his mother because he was brought to a place where inhumane things were happening. Once people start to lose their faith, they start doing things that leads to the loss of humanity.

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.