God and religion are core themes laced into every page of Night, and several times Elie does question the presence of God in a completely raw and emotional state through the use of Christian themes, loss of civil rights, and influences from other people around him, in fact renouncing God’s presence with Jews in their time of need.
The question of god is perhaps the towering question that confronts all of humanity at one time or another, but faced with a hell on earth scenario, adding forced seclusion with a group of withered individuals still being pushed to the brink, clouds the idea of god in a tyrannical haze of hate and vexation, just as it was for Wiesel. Elie first experiences a question of god not in the camps, but in Sighet, “‘Why do you pray?’ he asked after a moment…. ‘I don’t know,’ I told him, even more troubled and ill at
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The Kapos were beating us again, but I no longer felt the pain. A glacial wind was enveloping us.” (Wiesel, 36). Nazis thought the Jewish people were lower than insects, and treat them as though they have no cognitive idea of their surroundings, or felt emotional and physical pain. This treatment of Jews, Romas, people within the gay community, disabled people, and so many more stigmatised groups left survivors with serious survivor's guilt and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as seen in a recent study for psychological trauma in Holocaust survivors, “Most survivors alive today were children during World War II and the current findings call for special attention to the care of these survivors. As they approach old age, they face new challenges, including retirement, declining health and losing a spouse, and this may reactivate their extreme early stresses.” (Marinus Van IJzendoorn,
Throughout his recollections, it is clear that Elie has a constant struggle with his belief in God. Prior to Auschwitz, Elie was motivated, even eager to learn about Jewish mysticism. Yet, after he had been exposed to the reality of the concentration camps, Elie began to question God. According to Elie, God “caused thousands of children to burn...He kept six crematoria working day and night...He created Auschwitz, Birkenau, [and] Buna”(67). Elie could not believe the atrocities going on around him. He could not believe that the God he followed tolerated such things. During times of sorrow, when everyone was praying and sanctifying His name, Elie no longer wanted to praise the Lord; he was at the point of giving up. The fact that the “Terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent”(33) caused Elie to lose hope and faith. When one cho...
In the 1930s-1940s, the Nazis took millions of Jews into their death camps. They exterminated children, families, and even babies. Elie Wiesel was one of the few who managed to live through the war. However, his life was forever scarred by things he witnessed in these camps. The book Night explained many of the harsh feelings that Elie Wiesel experienced in his time in various German concentration camps. Prior to being taken, it is known that Wiesel was very strong in his beliefs of God and the ideas behind the Jewish religion. However, he questioned God while he endured the torture that the Nazis inflicted on many different races. He questioned why God had done this to these innocent people. Elie Wiesel lost much of his faith while in the
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.
It can be understood that at that moment, Elie was losing his mentality. Even so, he still had the sense of loneliness that most would have in that situation. Elie was hopeless, wondering where his God was, and why he was silent. Elie never doubted his belief in God, he doubted that the God was not his God, that the God was a terrible ruler. It is important to remember that this is extremely early in Wiesel’s experience with the concentration camps, and his piousness is already decreasing.
Night at the beginning of the novel is described as though Elie was having a difficult time realizing that everything that had happened to
Before Elie’s hometown got invaded, he was extremely religious. He used to pray and feel the presence of God all around him causing him to shed tears of joy and even began
Inked on the pages of Elie Wiesel’s Night is the recounting of him, a young Jewish boy, living through the mass genocide that was the Holocaust. The words written so eloquently are full of raw emotions depict his journey from a simple Jewish boy to a man who was forced to see the horrors of the world. Within this time period, between beatings and deaths, Wiesel finds himself questioning his all loving and powerful God. If his God loved His people, then why would He allow such a terrible thing to happen? Perhaps Wiesel felt abandoned by his God, helpless against the will of the Nazis as they took everything from him.
The Holocaust was a test of faith for all the Jews that were involved. There were several instances in the book Night when Elie’s faith was hindered. Not only was his faith in God tested, but also his faith in himself and his fellow man. Although the trials of the Holocaust were detrimental to Elie’s faith at the time, a number of the Jews’ strengthened by the test. Whenever the Holocaust began, Elie was very young and wasn’t sure what to believe or understand everything yet, causing him to go back and forth on how he felt and what he believed. The people around him were a tremendous impact on what he was thinking and believing. The state that people came out of the Holocaust heavily depended on who they were when they went in and what they
In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, religion plays an important role in the lives of the characters. As the story progresses, the characters all react to their situations with varying degrees of questioning their faith. Their reactions range from turning their back on religion completely to clinging to it in an effort to explain what is happening around them. Ultimately, this book shows that religion, although an important part of many people’s lives, can never explain why bad (or even good) things happen to people.
...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.
Night is a novel that is constructed off of the real life events of the widely known World War II. The novel depicts the moments and situations Eliezer had faced during his lifetime. Religion is a reoccurring topic as everyone's in that situation seeker to get closer to god
Throughout “Night” the main character loses his faith. On page 4 it says “Why do you (Elie) cry when you pray?” which means that he cared so much
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.
Elie has changed from an Orthodox Jew with a strong faith in God into a person that isn’t too sure about his faith anymore. Throughout the book, you can see Elie questioning himself and the life he was given by his God. He sees he was not as blessed as he thought he was, and his faith quickly deteriorates into nothing. His story is a great example of how an Orthodox Jew in a concentration camp can turn someone from having faith and happiness to someone’s that is miserable and constantly wishes he was dead. Elie not only loses faith in himself, but also with his dad and his relationship with God.