What Does Elie's Refusal To Give Up His Gold Crown

He lost his family, his faith, and at some point his will to live his father was the one thing that kept him living for so long and in the end slowly died and Elie watched until, Elie woke up and his father was no longer on his bed. He had been taken to the crematorium that morning. He had lost everything but had also survived what seemed impossible. He was so mentally strong in the fight of life or death that in the end he was victorious. He had lost his faith but, had still made it

In the book “Night”, Wiesel describes his own private experiences with inhumanity during his time inside the camps, going into vivid detail the true nature of the SS men who guarded the camps, and the starving slaves who were worked till they fell over dead from starvation. A prime example of these personal incidents include the death march. While being evacuated from Buna, Elie and his bunkmates, or blockalteste, were marched through the snow. If the prisoners slowed their pace or fell behind the others there were killed. “ They had orders to shoot anyone who did not sustain the pace”, shows this inhumane dynamic perfectly and goes on to include that” if one of us stopped for a second, a quick shot eliminated the filthy dog” (Wiesel,85) Another example of Elie’s personal experiences on inhumanity includes him being forced to have his gold crown removed. The passage states” the dentist from Warsaw pulled my crown with the help of a rusty spoon.” (Wiesel, 56) This infers that Elie was forced to have his crown removed. It was not by choice, rather it was a way to profit off the prisoners by selling their gold teeth. However, one of the most severe personal experiences Elie had to endure was when he was beaten as

In the text, ‘Night’, Elie survives because he keeps alive the hope of survival. An example of this is when he lies about his age and his occupation. “’I’m eighteen’. My voice was trembling” (page 33), this quote is evidence that Elie lied about his age so he does not get thrown into the crematorium, for being too young. Another example of Elie keeping the hope of survival alive is when he outcasts his father and decides to eat his rations. Elie does this because he knows that his father is sick and dying and he cannot help him besides watching him slowly die. Because of this his father has become a burden for Elie, lowing his chances of survival, and when Elie’s father dies Elie feels free from that burden. “And deep inside me, if I could have searched the recesses of my feeble conscience, I might have found something like: Free at last!” (Page 112), this quote evidence

On page 91, he sees that the Rabbi’s son starts to abandon his father to empty himself of that burden. Elie prays that he doesn’t become selfish enough to turn against his father. “Oh God, Master of the

He formed a hard shell around himself in the beginning, but opened up in the end. Elie was aware of himself gradually turning into a brute and he is worried that he will give up his humanity to survive. He is scared that he might eventually betray his own father. He had indeed “betrayed” his own father by not helping when his father was being beaten by the gypsy and later Idek, but Elie made up for it by saving his father’s life from the two men who were taking out the corpses. He felt good about eating extra soup after the death of one person, but he felt disgusted at himself after witnessing the death of a child too light to be hanged, so much as to lose his appetite.

Throughout the book Elies reason to keep going is often tied to his father's survival. He physically supports his father's survival by getting him food and taking care of his dad, he also contributes emotionally by providing his father mental support. Elie ends up spending what's little of his time and energy helping his dad rather than himself. Elie realizes the importance of family in this situation because of his surroundings. When Elie is on the Train from Gleiwitz to Buchenwald, the train is packed with prisoners and the thought of food is non existent. “My

: As Elie’s motivation to keep persevering at times began to diminish. Elie would either remind himself that god was watching over him and would eventually free him from the suffering and torture. Other times he would look over at his father and see him struggling yet still fighting with every

The two things that Elie say are “his entire life” are bread and soup. After finding out his gold crown was safe, he says it could be useful for him in any day, to buy something(food). In the text he says, “At that moment in time, all that mattered to me was my daily bowl of soup, my crust of stale bread. The bread, the soup— those were my entire life. I was nothing but a body. Perhaps even less: a famished stomach. The stomach alone was measuring time.” These two things are surely different from the things he valued before entering the concentration camp. Eliezer had valued family and Jewish religion before arriving the camp, which has now changed.

One day, when Elie returned from the warehouse, he was summoned by the block secretary to go to the dentist. Elie therefore went to the infirmary block to learn that the reason for his summon was gold teeth extraction. Elie, however pretends to be sick and asks, ”Couldn’t you wait a few days sir? I don’t feel well, I have a fever…” Elie kept telling the dentist that he was sick for several weeks to postpone having the crown removed. Soon after, it had appeared that the dentist had been dealing in the prisoners’ gold teeth for his own benefit. He had been thrown into prison and was about to be hanged. Eliezer does not pity for him and was pleased with what was happening

In the beginning of the book, Elie believed that he no longer had faith, though he had been a compelling believer before. He also reveals the strong relationship he had with his father, and because his father was the only sense of family he had left, he did everything he could to keep his father healthy and alive. In section three of the novel, Elie shows the first sign of loss of faith, “For the first time, I felt anger rising within me… why should I sanctify his name… what was there to thank him for” (Wiesel 33). He believed that the terrible situation he was in, was to surely be blamed on God, due to the unanswered prayers that Elie received. Elie displays the great relationship he possessed with his father in section three as well, “Men to the left… women to the right… eight words spoken quietly, indifferently, without emotion... eight simple, short words… yet that was the moment when I left my mother… we were alone” (Wiesel 29). The quote demonstrates the fact that Elie’s family was literally split in half when his sister and mother went to the right and he and his father stayed left. Elie only has his father, so it makes sense for Elie to sacrifice everything for him.

When he saw Elie’s gold crown, Franek wanted it for himself in order to trade for more useful objects such as utensils and food with other prisoners. When Elie refused to give up the gold crown, which Franke still eventually received, on the advice of his father, Franek begin to “torment my [Elie’s] father and to thrash him [Chlomo Wiesel] savagely every day” (Wiesel 63). Elie tried to teach his father, Chlomo Wiesel, how to march properly. But day after day, Chlomo Wiesel’s marching was still inadequate. At this point, readers would feel sympathetic and sadness for Elie having to choose between two hard choices, giving up the gold crown or risk losing his father, Chlomo Wiesel, to the daily beatings from Franek for incompetent

as much as he can about his studies and journey to becoming a man. Elie’s father would not teach him the things that he had wanted to learn, but he had expressed that he thought that he was too young

Elie was scared to get his gold crown taken out, so he thought of many excuses to get out of it.In the text of Night Elie Wiesel says, “”I shall remove your gold crown, that’s all,” he said, clearly in- different I thought of pretending to be sick: “Couldn’t you waid a few days, sir? I don’t feel well, I have a fever…” (52) He did not want to get his crown taken out so he thought of an excuse to keep his crown for a little longer.He did come back a few days later but he tried to get out of it again. In the text of Night it states, “”Let me have your crown, kid.” I answered that I could not because without that crown I could no longer eat.” (55) He is not overcoming this issue he is trying to put it aside and let it go away but he needs to face it. The third time he went back they did take it out of him and he overcame the issue. In the text the author emphasizes, “That evening in the latrines, the dentist from Warsaw pulled my crown with the help of a rusty spoon.” (56) This explains how he eventually overcame it and got his gold crown taken out. Elie Wiesel had to overcome many things during his life and this is one of

“My father had never served in the military and could not march in step. But here, whenever we moved from one place to another, it was in step. That presented Franek with the opportunity to torment him and, on a daily basis, to thrash him savagely.” This was on page 55 in the book “Night”, where Elie’s father was being beaten because Elie did not want to give his gold tooth to Franek. Elie then decided to try to teach his father how to march because he was worried for his well being. Elie could have just ignored his father pain and keeped his gold tooth for money but instead he decided to help his father which cost him his gold tooth and a ration. Another moment in “Night” where Elie’s worry for his father cost him his ration of food. “ Let me give you good advice: stop giving your ration of bread and soup to your old father. You cannot help him anymore. And you are hurting yourself.”( page 110) This quote shows Elie was giving his food to his dying father and if he continued to give his food to his father Elie would have been joining his father soon. But without Elie’s father, Elie probably would not have survived as long as he

“A man with a little stick decides who will live and who will die. This man acts like God. To the right you live, to the left, you die.” As Elie watches the evil that exists it begins to consume his belief in the existence of God. “Where is my God? Where is He?” Elie asks over and over again as he is living under conditions of extreme poverty, freezing winter nights and days, only the little ration of bread and soup, witnessing hangings, beatings, starvation, and torture.