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Impact of religion on the individual
Impact of religion on the individual
Impact of religion on the individual
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“Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.” (34, Wiesel). This quote is an excerpt taken from the book, “Night” by Elie Wiesel. Night is a book that vividly tells the story about a young Elie Wiesel, a boy who suffered through an ordeal no person should have to face; the Holocaust. The quote is one among many that details the struggles Elie endured, but he not only experienced turmoil with his faith in God, but also with his father, the Nazis, and his will to live. Of all these conflicts, I strongly believe that the conflict which caused the most prominent change in Elie Wiesel was his struggle with his faith in God. As a matter of fact, this conflict not only changed his viewpoint on his religion, but also his emotional well being. Initially, Elie showed a strong devotion to God but as his situation deteriorated, he doubted God's power and eventually redefined the position God held in his life. …show more content…
He has such a deep faith in God that he studies daily in order to know the true essence of God’s divinity and even continued to read the Kabbalah when his father would not permit him too. When asked why he prayed by Moishe the Beadle, Elie thought, “Why did I pray? Strange question. Why did I live? Why did I breathe?” (4). From this statement it shows that Elie has such a deep belief in his Religion that he regards prayer as a basic function to live. Elie’s deep religious devotion has an impact where originally Elie’s faith is based only on his studies and I think this makes an image that he is naive in the fact
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
In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie starts losing faith in his Jewish beliefs. Multiple times in the book Elie says quotes that show his anger and disappointment with what he sees every day in the concentration camps. In this essay I will be showing many examples from different quotes on why Elie begins losing his faith.
The Holocaust was the mass murder of Jews during the period of 1941 to 1945 under the German Nazi regime. More than six million European Jews were murdered out of a nine million Jewish population. Out of those who had survived was Elie Wiesel, who is the author of a literary memoir called Night. Night was written in the mid 1950’s after Wiesel had promised himself ten years before the making of this book to stay silent about his suffering and undergoing of the Holocaust. The story begins in Transylvania and then follows his journey through a number of concentration camps in Europe. The protagonist, Eliezer or Elie, battles with Nazi persecution and his faith in God and humanity. Wiesel’s devotion in writing Night was to not stay quiet and bear witness; on the contrary, it was too aware and to enlighten others of this tragedy in hopes of preventing an event like this from ever happening again.
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.
In this world, people go through the process of dealing with both empathy and malice. As a matter of fact, almost everyone has been through times where maybe they feel understood by some and misunderstood by others. Specifically, in the book “Night”, by Elie Wiesel, a character named Madame Schachter goes through the experience of fellow Jews displaying empathy and malice during in result to her behavior. Along with this, the reactions reveal just how inconsiderate we can act when in uncomfortable situations. One example of the malice and lack of sympathy they provided her was during the cattle car ride to Auschwitz. During this ride, she went a bit insane due to the devastating separation of her family. Elie explains, “She received several blows to the head, blows that could have been
The significance of night throughout the novel Night by Elie Wiesel shows a poignant view into the daily life of Jews throughout the concentration camps. Eliezer describes each day as if there was not any sunshine to give them hope of a new day. He used the night to symbolize the darkness and eeriness that were brought upon every Jew who continued to survive each day in the concentration camps. However, night was used as an escape from the torture Eliezer and his father had to endure from the Kapos who controlled their barracks. Nevertheless, night plays a developmental role of Elie throughout he novel.
In my opinion the internal conflict faced by the narrator is Elie Wiesel´s struggle with his religion when he arrived at the camp. The repetition of ¨never shall I forget¨ is important because he's never going to be able to forget leaving his mother and sisters, and seeing the small children being burned to death when they hadńt done anything wrong, and having to decide wether he's going to take his own life or not. Heĺl never forget the horrors of the holocaust. Its important to remember the holocaust because innocent lives were lost for no reason other than the nazis trying to find the better race when the only race in my opinion should be the human race, and if we forget this then it would probably be pretty easy for another genocide to
One minute Elie Wiesel was sitting at home enjoying time with his family then, all of as sudden, he was forced out of his own home and on his was to a death camp with tons of other people just like him. What was he going to do in order to survive? How would he overcome the physical and mental challenges that this horrible death camp will bring? In the beginning of the novel, Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie turned to studying the Kabbalah and studying his God. Throughout the novel, we see parts where Elie’s faith begins to slip and he questions why, why is God doing this to him and others in the Auschwitz camp. The author wants his readers to see the changes the camp on his religious beliefs. In Night, Elie Wiesel uses tone, diction, and repetition to illustrate the loss of faith in Elie.
What are the best types of conflicts? Night by Elie Wiesel contains a lot of uses of conflict. This is a story told from the viewpoint of Elie. In the story he talks about his experiences as a Jew during the Holocaust. If not already obvious this is a true story. The conflict of character vs self develops throughout the story and effects Elie.
He applies tone by quoting the men who are questioning God. they are angry and frustrated that God is not there to set them free. Moreover, Elie uses repetition to utilize the theme. He repeats the same line over and over again to get the reader to commemorate. Lastly, he employs irony in his story. Elie realizes how ironic it is to worship someone who will not even give you mercy. The Jews that went through Holocaust experienced more pain than anyone should ever go through. It was very hard for more of them to hold onto their
When a person's faith is also an alternative for their culture and morals, it proves challenging to take that sense of security in that faith away from them. In Night, Elie Wiesel, a Jewish student living in Sighet, Transylvania during the war of 1942, uses his studies in Talmud and the Kabbalah as not only a religious practice but a lifestyle. Elie and his fellow civilians are warned, however, by his Kabbalah teacher who says that during the war, German aggressors are aggregately imprisoning, deporting, and annihilating millions of Jews. When Elie and his family are victim of this aggression, Elie realizes how crucial his faith in God is if he is to survive the Holocaust. He vows after being separated from his mother and sisters that he will protect he and his father from death, even though as death nears, Elie gradually becomes closer to losing his faith. In the end, to Elie's devastation, Elie makes it out of the Holocaust alone after his father dies from the intense seclusion to malnutrition and deprivation. Elie survives the Holocaust through a battle of conscience--first by believing in God, then resisting his faith in God, and ultimately replacing his faith with obligation to his father.
Elie Wiesel had a very strong religion and always wanted to improve his faith but when the war came he began to lose all faith that he couldn't find anything to believe in anymore, because of all the horrible things that went on in the camps and the working
Edwin Louis Cole once said, “God never ends anything on a negative; God always ends on a positive.” In Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night this quote is very significant to me. He wrote the book to inform people about the horrific nature of the Holocaust in a way that was more real than a few sentences in a history book. The biggest themes are loss of religion, destruction of self, and the darkness which Wiesel felt internally, but in the end Elie wins his well-deserved liberation. Therefore, Wiesel wrote Night to show us readers how he lost his once, close knit faith during his imprisonment along with many other things.
In the Holocaust, there were things that happened that were poignant. Elie Wiesel has made a book that showed things that happened during the holocaust. In the book, Night, there are quotes that are poignant and significant.
This is the summary of the book Night, by Elie Wiesel. The subject matter of the book takes place during World War II. In this summary you, the reader, will be given a brief overview of the memoir and it will be discussed why the piece is so effective. Secondly, there will be a brief discussion about the power of one voice versus the listing of statistics. The impact of reading about individuals struggling to survive with the barest of means, will be the third and final point covered in this summary, with the authors feelings as commentary. The author’s own experience with the book is recommending you to read this summary of Night, and hopefully convince you to read the book itself.