Night By Elie Wiesel Analysis

Loyalty to Family comes after Self-Preservation

In times of catastrophic hardship, people devolve to primitive beings only concerned about themselves. Anti-Semitism is discrimination directed towards the Jewish Race and is used as a scapegoat ideology by Adolf Hitler to motivate the German people into being manipulated to commit mass genocide. Without Anti-Semitism, Hitler wouldn’t have been able to achieve the atrocities acted out during the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel, author of Night, shares the story of Eliezer’s horrific experiences as a Jewish boy during the Holocaust. Eliezer starts out as an innocent Jew that is a devote disciple of Talmud and evolves into an emotionless body that fights to survive until he can attain freedom. Elie Wiesel

Eliezer demonstrated the prioritization of self-preservation over loyalty to loved when a Nazi soldier “began beating my father with an iron bar” (4.78) and Eliezer “watched it all happen without moving. I kept silent in fact” (4.79). The tone Elie Wiesel uses to describe Eliezer’s nearly non-existent reaction to his father’s beating shows how Wiesel believes people prioritize themselves over the ones they claim they would die for. Wiesel believes that if Eliezer truly cared for his father he would’ve at least attempted to stop the Nazi soldier from beating his father. The lack of action taken by Eliezer further proves the perception given in Wiesel’s negative tone towards these false claims of unity binded by love towards family. The negative tone is furthermore demonstrated by Wiesel’s dismal attitude towards a situation where a weak man’s son beats and kills his own father for a piece of bread. This act truly demonstrates the tone towards the Jewish people’s false perception of family over everything. If family truly came first, then there would be no possible reasoning behind the killing of a man by his own son over bread, regardless of the situation this act disproves the misconception that these people prioritized their family over