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elie wiesel night character anlysis
literary analysis questions about night by elie wiesel
literary analysis questions about night by elie wiesel
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Night In Night, by Elie Wiesel, there is an underlying theme of anger. Anger not directed where it seems most appropriate- at the Nazis- but rather a deeper, inbred anger directed towards God. Having once been a role model of everything a “good Jew” should be, Wiesel slowly transforms into a faithless human being. He cannot comprehend why the God who is supposed to love and care for His people would refuse to protect them from the Germans. This anger grows as Wiesel does and is a constant theme throughout the book. Early in Night, Elie Wiesel begins to express doubt about his faith. Some talked of God, of his mysterious ways, ...and of their future deliverance. But I had ceased to pray. How I sympathized with Job! I did not deny God’s existence, but I doubted His absolute justice. (42) A good example of the mental shift occurring within Wiesel, this passage. Having grown up as a child of extreme faith in God and his divine power, this is a striking contrast of spiritual views. Young Wiesel once spent hours praying to God when he had very little concerns (especially when compared to his concerns in the concentration camp). Now that he is in a very trying time, one would think that his faith would be something he would desire to find comfort in. The tone of the first sentence almost sounds sarcastic- as if Wiesel thinks it odd that his people would even consider praying at all. He seems to view himself as being above all of that, not needing his faith- as he felt it could (or would) do nothing to help save him. In Wiesel’s sympathizing with Job, I see a contradiction, however. Job was a man of tremendous faith in God who, even when everything (famine, pestilence, death of all of his family, disease, poverty) went wrong, he still had faith in God. Job never doubted that the Lord would sustain him and support him. While on the other hand, Wiesel has given up all hope that he will be rescued by his faith. He has not stopped believing in God, however. Perhaps he has stopped believing in the particular God he has grown up worshiping. The last sentence shows us that he still believes that there is a God, he simply no longer trusts him. He feels as though his people have been betrayed and God is allowing the Jews to become victims for no apparent reason. As Night progresses, Wiesel becomes increasingly more hostil... ... middle of paper ... ...see the inner reckoning of Wiesel to the conflict he has been fighting within himself. Until now, Wiesel has felt guilty about his growing distrust in God. Since childhood, the focus of the young boy’s life has been spiritual- and now he feels betrayed. He even goes as far as saying that he, the accuser, is accusing God himself. Wiesel goes on to say that his was alone- “terribly alone.” There is nothing in this world- religion, man, love, mercy- except Wiesel himself. This is ironic, seeing that he and the other Jews were so tightly packed into first the ghetto, then the trains, finally the camps themselves. It would seem- physically, at least- that Wiesel was closer to more people at this point than ever before in his life. He tells us, however, that he feel as though he is terribly, terribly alone. Wiesel talks of feeling that he is stronger than God. He sees those around him as being weak because of their need for God. Needing anything while in captivity can only make him weaker and more vulnerable. Because Wiesel feels abandoned and has calloused over his need for God, he feels stronger than the rest of the Jewish people- stronger even than the One they need.
The unimaginable actions from German authorities in the concentration camps of the Holocaust were expected to be tolerated by weak prisoners like Wiesel or death was an alternate. These constant actions from the S.S. officers crushed the identification of who Wiesel really was. When Wiesel’s physical state left, so did his mental state. If a prisoner chose to have a mind of their own and did not follow the S.S. officer’s commands they were written brutally beaten or even in severe cases sentenced to their death. After Wiesel was liberated he looked at himself in the mirror and didn’t even recognize who he was anymore. No prisoner that was a part of the Holocaust could avoid inner and outer turmoil.
and humanity. Wiesel shows how the Jews mistreated and were mistreated with word choice and situational irony. Elie, the main the character in the book, gives the reader a personal perspective of being a Jew during the Holocaust. Being a Jew was difficult since the Nazis not only mistreated them, but also gave them false hope which contributed to their dehumanization.
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.
He says, “These failures have cast a dark shadow over humanity: two World Wars, countless civil wars, the senseless chain of assassinations,... so much violence; so much indifference.” (4). Indifference is shown by not only the people involved in these violent events, but also Wiesel’s audience as well, many clueless of these events. For one to fail to know and understand these events in order to stop and bring awareness to them is just as wrong as committing the event in the first place, according to Wiesel. One must also believe the event itself to escape the corruptive qualities of indifference. During the Holocaust, many did not believe what was happening and chose to then ignore it rather than do anything about it. The unaware audience and people in the 1940s thoroughly proves the corrosiveness of
Most people have never experienced anything near as awful as what Wiesel experienced. He was one of the only people who found a way to hold onto their faith. Many made excuses not to perform rituals and eventually lost all faith. Wiesel was weakened, but remained faithful. Akiba Drumer, a friend of Wiesel, tried to convince himself that it was a test by God. However, Akiba also lost faith. “Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.” (Wiesel 34) This quote was from a small portion of Wiesel’s “Never Shall I Forget Poem.” It showed how Elie lost faith in God when he saw what the Nazis were doing to families and children. This quote shows how the religious part of Elie was “murdered.” Elie seemed to become foreign and isolated from his people. He seemed to be just going through the motions during his time in the camps. “In the midst of these men assembled for prayer, I felt like an observer, a stranger.” (Mauriac XXI) This quote shows how Wiesel felt like he was a stranger to the religion, community, and faith. Elie Wiesel couldn’t understand why God would hurt people, and most of all why he was spared. “And question of questions: Where was God in all this? It seemed as impossible to conceive of Auschwitz with God as to conceive of Auschwitz without God.” (Hope, Despair and Memory) This shows how Wiesel couldn’t grasp the reasoning behind God. He wanted
Truthfully, it was inevitable that Wiesel would find himself connected so deeply to his religious beliefs. “‘By day I studied the Talmud and by night I would run to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the Temple’” (Wiesel 3), the boy’s passion for Judaism so prominent at the beginning and
While faith is still a part of Wiesel’s life today, he continues to look at it with a skeptical view. Due to the events that took place in those concentration camps, something that was whole in his life will never have all the pieces anymore. To survive a tragic event like the Holocaust without a support system to fall back on is a feat many people couldn’t do. Wiesel has thought and done things a single person shouldn’t be able to do, such as almost completely lose his faith but then go back to it. This is just one of the many things Wiesel was able to do and overcome.
In Wiesel’s speech tone is one of the most vital components established throughout his purpose. By using several different tones varying from sympathetic, to disappointment, to doubt, to anger Wiesel is able to captivate the audience to listen to his words while not being dogmatic or forcing the audience to disregard his purpose. The multiple tone shifts affect the reader in many ways so that the reader and audience is able to gain a new perspective without being yelled at or scorned for what they have done. In Wiesel’s speech tone is a key factor in keeping the audience intrigued so that he may present his purpose of the danger indifference and how it casts a dark shadow upon a society. By doing this, tonal shifts allow Wiesel to bash the
In the beginning of the book, Wiesel strongly believed in a god. He believed in a god so strongly that he sought out someone to teach him about his god. He also wanted to teach him how to live by the rules of his god. As the book, progressed Wiesel began to lose faith in his god. Wiesel saw many horrific events, which led him to believe that there is no possibility of a god existing because he would never let these things happen to his people. By the end of the novel, Wiesel had lost all faith in God.
‘Oh God, Master of the Universe, give me the strength never to do what Rabbi Eliahu’s son has done’” (Wiesel 91). The topic of a father and son relationship is extremely personal to Wiesel, which makes him hark back to how he was raised: religiously. Though clouded with a sense of reality from his experience in the camps, Wiesel still has hints of hope in his view of the world from his upbringing in Sighet. Thus, our upbringing affects much of the way we see the
Wiesel continues to witness hangings, beatings, starvation, and torture. One day when Wiesel comes back from a day’s work, he sees three gallows being assembled. The whole camp has to witness the hangings. Among the 3 people who would die that day, was a young child. Wiesel wondered what that poor innocent boy had done to deserve to die in this manner. Wiesel watched the boy struggling between life and death. The death was a slow agony. At this point Wiesel lost all faith in the existence of God. "Where is God now? Where is He? Here is - He is hanging here on this gallows..."(62) After this incident Wiesel could no longer believe in God.
Eliezer Wiesel loses his faith in god, family and humanity through the experiences he has from the Nazi concentration camp.
“ Why, but why would I bless him? Every fiber in me rebelled. Because he caused thousands of children to burn in his mass graves”(Wiesel 67). Wiesel is telling us in these few sentences exactly how he feels about praying on holidays now. He no longer believes in his religion because the one person he thought he could count on to get them through this horrific time, said and did nothing for them. That is at least what he feels. Other people still believed in their religion and they still prayed on holidays. Wiesel on the other hand completely disregarded everything to do with his religion. He is definitely telling us exactly how he feels in this situation with the way things are looking.” I did not weep.and it pained me that I could not weep”(112). In these sentences Wiesel is telling how he feels about his father dying. He said he could no longer weep. The reason for that is because he was too tired. He showed the rest of the story that he was agt his breaking point when his father died. He didn’t have the feelings any longer. He had nothing to be sad about anymore because he already cried and gave out all of his feelings by helping his father before he
Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor, started off as an ordinary teenager, however, went on to face cruelty that no one should have to experience. He had friends, went to school, and even studied the Kabbalah in his free time. Until one day, his hometown, Sighet, was invaded by German soldiers. After the arrival of German soldiers, Jews like Wiesel were sent to the ghettos, and they were then put on trains to a variety of different concentration camps. Wiesel constantly went back and forth through numerous concentration camps— five to be exact. After being separated from his mother and sister, the only person Wiesel had left was his father. Wiesel expresses the feeling as, "My father's presence was the only thing that stopped me. He was running next to me, out of breath, out of strength, desperate.
Humans are complex beings which can be mysterious at times, humans show ranges of emotions, all the way from the dark side of humanity to the light. Humanity has the capacity to have the dark and light of humanity reside within us all. The good of humanity been what shines through for the majority of humanity, however the darkness will always reside within human kind. It is down to humanity whether or not to allow the darkness take hold. Through Wiesel’s graphic story he recounts the darkness and lightness of humanity through the events that he is put through, the trial that his god put him through. He exhibits hate for his god and love for his father. He ‘Leaves behind a legacy of words, memories’ for the next generations, a legacy for people to listen to, to learn from to ensure that what he endures never has to be endured again. However an important lesson came out of what the Jews where put through ‘Help one another. It’s the only way to survive’. Humanity may possess flaws and darkness, but the goodness and light of humanity will always over power the darkness and allow humanity to burst from the