False Faith In Elie Wiesel's Night

The novel Night demonstrates that the human spirit can be affected by the power of false hope, by religion, and that one will do whatever it will take to survive for oneself and family.
False hope and self-deception are powerful forces in Night. Self-deception has two primary results: boosting hope, but also weakening the Jews and leaving them vulnerable. The Jews of Sighet deceive themselves many times into thinking that they are not in any danger. This illusion prevents them from escaping Sighet while they still have an opportunity to. This false hope is used to create hope in situations where there is none. Elie states that, “He spoke only of what he had seen. But people not only refused to believe his tales, they refused to listen.” (7).

Rabbi Eliahou and his son is a strong example of this. On their journey to the next camp, the Rabbi’s son runs ahead of his father on purpose in attempt to lose him in the crowd. Elie witnesses the Rabbi’s son continuing running from his limping father, thus making the distance grow greater. He says to himself, “My God, Lord of the Universe, please give me strength never to do what Rabbi Eliahou’s son has done.” (91). Another example is near the end of the book when Elie’s father grows very ill. Even though his father is close to death, he leaves him. When he wakes up the next morning, his father is missing from the bed below him. Elie prays to himself in hope that he will not find his father. “If only I were relieved of this responsibility, I could use all my strength to fight for my own survival, to take care only of myself… ” (106). When his father dies he did not cry and his first thought was “Free at last!” (112). This is exactly what Elie did not want to happen to him. He did not want to be just like the Rabbi’s son. However, in this example, Elie demonstrates that is similar to the Rabbi’s son. And he does not forgive himself for this. Elie starts to rely on himself because he knows that he can’t afford to depend on anybody else but himself. Only when his father was hit in the beginning of the book is when Elie starts to feel afraid of death. He felt guilty for not helping and defending his father. "I did not move. What had happened to me? My father had just been struck, before my very eyes, and I had not flickered an eyelid..."(39). And then, when he loses his father, he feels like he nothing to live for anymore "Since my father’s death, nothing mattered to me