Humanity “He threw himself on me like a wild beast, beating me in the chest, on my head, throwing me to the ground and picking me up again, crushing me with ever more violent blows, until I was covered in blood”(Wiesel 58). It's horrible to think how quickly a person can lose their sense of humanity. This struggle with humanity throughout Night, is the main idea that makes this book so powerful and heartbreaking. The thought that so many people can be slaughtered like cattle, and thrown away like garbage is unbelievable. Throughout the book, Elie’s alias, Eliezer, is forced to witness some of the most horrific and inhumanly cruel acts that the world has ever seen. From seeing truckloads of babies dumped into a pit of fire, to watching his own father beaten over and over within an inch of his life. …show more content…
If anyone goes missing you will all be shot, like dogs” (Wiesel 24). Eighty people being forced into a single car already is inhumane. The fact that these cars are used for cattle and are barred up makes it worse. Once they are in the cars, they are forced to stand for days, very little food and water, no bathrooms, and terribly stale air make the trip unbearable. But this is only the beginning, as the prisoners arrive at Birkenau. In Auschwitz they are separated from parts of their family, “Men to the left, Women to the right!” (Wiesel 29). Stripped of their clothing “Strip! Hurry up! Raus!” (Wiesel 35), and given numbers in place of their names. This method of dehumanizing is frighteningly effective, driving sons to kill their own fathers over scraps of food “Meir, my little Meir! Don’t you recognize me… You're killing your father…” (Wiesel 101). This being the only way that the German soldiers can condemn so many people to their deaths. For those who have been able to survive this long a quick death will be a blessing more than a
Elie’s loss of innocence and childhood lifestyle is very pronounced within the book, Night. This book, written by the main character, Elie Wiesel, tells the readers about the experiences of Mr. Wiesel during the Holocaust. The book starts off by describing Elie’s life in his hometown, Sighet, with his family and friends. As fascism takes over Hungary, Elie and his family are sent north, to Auschwitz concentration camp. Elie stays with his father and speaks of his life during this time. Later, after many stories of the horrors and dehumanizing acts of the camp, Elie and his father make the treacherous march towards Gliewitz. Then they are hauled to Buchenwald by way of cattle cars in extremely deplorable conditions, even by Holocaust standards. The book ends as Elie’s father is now dead and the American army has liberated them. As Elie is recovering in the hospital he gazes at himself in a mirror, he subtly notes he much he has changed. In Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie loses his innocence and demeanour because he was traumatized by what he saw in the camps, his loss of faith in a God who stood idly by while his people suffered, and becoming selfish as he is forced to become selfish in the death camps to survive.
In his memoir, Night, author Elie Wiesel describes the horrors he experienced during the Holocaust. One prominent theme throughout the work is the evolution of human relationships within the camp, specifically between fathers and sons. While they are marching between camps, Elie speaks briefly with Rabbi Eliahu, who lost sight of his son on the long journey. Elie says he has not seen the rabbi’s son, but after Rabbi Eliahu leaves, he remembers seeing the son. He realizes that the rabbi’s son did not lose track of his father but instead purposefully ran ahead thinking it would increase his chances of survival. Elie, who has abandoned nearly all of his faith in God, cannot help but pray, saying, “ ‘ Oh God, Master of the Universe, give me the strength never to do what Rabbi Eliahu’s son has done’ ” (Wiesel 91). In this moment, his most fervent hope is that he will remain loyal to his father and not let his selfishness overcome his dedication to his father. However, he is soon no longer able to maintain this hope.
In the memoir, Night, Elie Wiesel remembers his time at Auschwitz during the Holocaust. Elie begins to lose his faith in God after his faith is tested many times while at the concentration camp. Elie conveys to us how horrific events have changed the way he looks at his faith and God. Through comments such as, “Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God, my soul, and turned my dreams into dust,” he reveals the toll that the Holocaust has taken on him. The novel begins during the years of 1942-1944 in Sighet, Transylvannia, Romania. Elie Wiesel and his family are deported and Elie is forced to live through many horrific events. Several events such as deportation, seeing dead bodies while at Auschwitz, and separation from his mother and sisters, make Elie start to question his absolute faith in God.
So as the morning Sun rose. The light beamed on Christopher's face. The warmth of the sun welcomed him to a new day and woke up in a small house in Los Angeles. Christopher is a tall, male, that loves technology and video games. He stretched and went to the restroom it was 9 o'clock and he was thankful it was spring break and didn’t have to go to school. Christopher made his way to the kitchen trying not wake up his parents and made himself breakfast. He served himself cereal Honey Bunches of Oats to be exact with almond milk. Then he took a shower and watched some YouTube videos before doing his homework.
Within the next few years, Wiesel’s simple Jewish life is snatched from his clutch and never seen again, the first crack in the glass of his fragile being. His humanity stripped from him and his mother and sister Tzipora taken, Wiesel becomes jaded and angered with his God. He became an “accuser, God the accused” (Wiesel 68), he could no longer think or speak of God without a question to follow it. One can feel powerful once he denounces his God. It is as if a veil is lifted and suddenly he can see.
...e has to deal with the death of his family, the death of his innocence, and the death of his God at the very young age of fifteen. He retells the horrors of the concentration camp, of starvation, beatings, torture, illness, and hard labor. He comes to question how God could let this happen and to redefine the existence of God in the concentration camp. This book is also filled with acts of kindness and compassion amid the degradation and violence. It seems that for every act of violence that is committed, Elie counteracts with some act of compassion. Night is a reflection on goodness and evil, on responsibility to family and community, on the struggle to forge identity and to maintain faith. It shows one boy's transformation from spiritual idealism to spiritual death via his journey through the Nazi's failed attempt to conquer and erase a people and their faith.
In the book Night, there were multiple themes that were focused on. One of the themes was the belief of ones god or any god- it was being questioned by Elie himself. He struggles believing in his faith. He is conflicted because he wonders how a God is capable of allowing this type of pain to be inflicted upon anyone. He wonders why or how a God could allow such misery to those who did nothing but be his
As the book progresses Elie’s childlike innocence starts to dissipate as shown by, “In front of us, those flames. In the air, the smells of burning flesh. It must have been around midnight. We had arrived. In Birkenau.” (28). As that night went on the first horrors of Birkenau came alive to him. It was literally like walking through the burning inferno people called hell. That was the moment when innocence became a thing unheard to Elie and all around him in the concentration camp. The night he asked his father “when will it be our turn” (18) at that lonely night in the ghetto was the first time he began to understand the depth of the situation he was in. Then the real blow to his innocence came when he is standing at the fire pit and saying the Jewish death rights words“Yisgadal, veyiskadash, shmey raba…” m...
In Night, it is discovered that atrocities and cruel treatment can make decent people into brutes. Elie himself also shows signs of becoming a brute for his survival, but escapes this fate, which is shown through his interactions with his father. Firstly, Elie’s moral side, overcoming the temptation to be a brute, is shown through his love for his father. However, despite these thoughts, he still decided to support his father, which helps him detour away from the path to being a brute.
Elie goes to Auschwitz at an innocent, young stage in his life. Due to his experiences at this concentration camp, he loses his faith, his bond with his father, and his innocence. Situations as horrendous as the Holocaust will drastically change people, no matter what they were like before the event, and this is evident with Elie's enormous change throughout the memoir Night.
Did you know you could kill 6,000,000, and capture about 1 million people in one lifetime? In “Night” Elie Wiesel talks about the life of one of those 7 million people, going into detail about the living conditions, and also talking about the experiences in the book that happened to him. The book explains how it felt to be in a concentration camp, and how it changed a person so much you couldn’t tell the difference between the dead and the living. Elie Wiesel is the author and he was only around 15 when this story happened, so this is his story and how the events in the story changed him. So in the book “Night” by Elie Wiesel, the main character, “Elie,” is affected by the events in the book such as losing faith, becoming immune to death, and emotionally changing throughout the course of the book.
In Elie Wiesel’s Night, he recounts his horrifying experiences as a Jewish boy under Nazi control. His words are strong and his message clear. Wiesel uses themes such as hunger and death to vividly display his days during World War II. Wiesel’s main purpose is to describe to the reader the horrifying scenes and feelings he suffered through as a repressed Jew. His tone and diction are powerful for this subject and envelope the reader. Young readers today find the actions of Nazis almost unimaginable. This book more than sufficiently portrays the era in the words of a victim himself.
During the Holocaust era, a third of all Jewish people alive at the time were murdered by the Germans. In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, the systematic killing of the Jewish people was happening all around him. Although Wiesel does not use the word “genocide,” his account of his experience shows that it was definitely genocide that he witnessed.
In the book Night Elie retains his humanity because of the people he is around. If he had not been influenced by these people, he would never have made it through the camps. His father made him realize his humanity, while the french woman gave him hope. The little boy who was hanged only enforced his humanity. Elie keeps his humanity while in the camps and outside of them because he is influenced by other people. If he had been around total strangers, he would have had a much harder time keeping his humanity. Humanity is the disposition to do good even when all is lost. Elie does this throughout Night.
In conclusion, in the novel Night, the Germens had so much force and power that no minority (Jewish individuals) could stop them. As a result, the Germans took advantage of the power they had and killed a lot of Jews in very unpleasant ways, thus illustrating inhumanity. The Germans had no feelings or sympathy for their actions and through the two quotations provided, it is evident of how the Jewish society lived in fear and helplessness. Elie will never forget what he saw the first night he was at camp and this was the build up of fear, also how the Germens executed the child shows that they are heartless by making the innocent suffer. These examples were very brutal and inhumane ways of dealing with the Jews, as a result the Germans took advantage of their power in the wrong way, abused it by doing whatever they desire.